


Natural Talent

by 27dragons, tisfan



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Anal Sex, Genre-appropriate violence, Hand Jobs, Jealousy, M/M, Oral Sex, Pining, Scott Lang is a Good Bro, Sex Worker, Steve is not a main character, a thinly veiled excuse for skimpy outfits, canon-typical recovery from injuries, companion!Tony, no condoms because tech, warlord!Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-03-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:35:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 47,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22011622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Bucky is Boss of the Commando territory, carved out of Hydra's territory with blood, tears, and sweat - mostly his own. He has a reputation in other territories for being hard and ruthless, but his own people know him as a generous, considerate leader. He protects his land and his people, but otherwise keeps his head down. He has no intention of getting embroiled in any of the other territories' disputes. That is, until Bucky finds himself in possession of a beautiful companion and learns that the man is far more than he appears.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 790
Kudos: 1236





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Characters in this fic use computer-type chips that they slot into their own brains to give themselves skills and talents they wouldn't already have, or to enhance natural talent. We thought it was worth noting right off the bat (because Tony is using a sex worker's chip), that the chips do not, and cannot, override consent.

There weren’t as many Market Days these days as when Bucky was a boy; trust between turf bosses was thin on the ground, and getting enough protection to watch over something as vast and tempting as a market was hard. 

But Stane had called together three bosses and suggested it.

A festival. A time for trade. For buying and selling. The mingling of new blood. 

“You trust this shit, Sammie,” Bucky wondered, looking around. Small stalls were covered with trade goods, food, drink. Yarn dyers from the north bickered with textile crafters from the east. Somewhere, someone was playing music, which meant there would be dancing and drinking and a whole hell of a lot of people with hangovers, by Monday morning.

Assuming it wasn’t an elaborate trap, and they wouldn’t all be at war in a few hours. 

“Trust? Hell, no,” Sam said. He wore his guns open and low, kept one hand near a grip at all times. “But it’s good for business. Scott says he’s got a line on a quickshop on the outskirts, selling modified chips.”

“I don’t know what Stane’s up to,” Bucky said. He hadn’t seen much in the way of upper level Management from Stane’s territory, and certainly not the Iron Monger himself, even if his people were in ample evidence. “Radio Jan and give her the all clear. If this is going to go south, they’ll wait until sunset, at least. Might as well buy up Stane steel while we have the opportunity. Guns, bullets, ingots, whatever they’ll sell.”

He couldn’t help watching the crowd, searching, seeking. He saw a handful of pick-thieves working the shoppers, beggars of every sort and description. Ten Rings was also out, their troops staying in small packs, heavily armed. They weren’t much on shopping, and when they were, they didn’t dicker. Offered a price and then took their goods. It was quick, at least. 

A colorful burst of silk and lace caught Bucky’s eye and he turned his head to watch a cart with a half dozen cages in the back. His nostrils flared; sweet oil and perfume. Human cattle. Companions and concubines. The contract mart must be at the end of that road. Bucky didn’t realize that he’d turned all the way around to watch them, eye drawn to one figure wearing red and gold silk, until Sam jabbed him with a sharp elbow.

“Man, do not get sucked in. Ten Rings companions are as like to slit your throat as suck your cock.”

“Doesn’t hurt to look,” Bucky replied. There were a few trained companions in Commando territory, but Bucky tried to avoid entanglements with his own people. It made things easier, if a bit lonely, sometimes. His own _personal_ companion… well, that would be costly, but maybe… maybe someday. “Sometimes they give a little show, while they’re looking for a new protector. Sample the wares.”

Sam snorted. “You wanna tangle with Stane weaponsmiths or Ten Rings toughs, I got your back. You want to go play peekaboo in the companions’ tent, I’mma wait outside.”

“Food and trade first, then fighting. And then if we’re not at war, maybe I’ll take a look-see,” Bucky said. “Still not sure what Stane’s angle is.” He picked a booth, almost at random, ran a thumb over a leather hide, turned it over to look at the ablative plating underneath. Lightweight, durable. High tech. Probably not even that uncomfortable, which would make it a hell of a lot better than the ceramic and mesh that Bucky was wearing. Also, fashionable, which was a plus.

He spent a few minutes letting the booth’s vendor explain how it worked, displaying holos of the armor under combat conditions, extolling the virtues. It wasn’t Wakanda turf nanotech, but then, what was? And no one had gotten through to Wakanda turf in a long time. They wouldn’t be out trading, and even smugglers didn’t get too far away from the Prince before the Wardogs would catch them.

“Nice,” Bucky declared, and waved his left hand in front of the booth’s placard. The scanner in his wrist would keep a running tally of what merch that Bucky was interested in, and send the data to some of his runners. At the end of the night, he’d finalize the purchase list. Bucky wasn’t really buying anything for himself, but for his turf and his people.

Their circuit took them past weapon dealers and armorsmiths, grain merchants and canned fruits and vegetables. A ceramics dealer had pretty offerings, but in the end, plates were plates, and Bucky didn’t need his table to look fancy.

When they met up with Scott at the skillset dealer, Bucky’d already planned out for at least half of the turf’s petty cash. 

“Tell me what they got here, anything we need?”

Scott nodded, pulled up his own scanner. “Couple of sharpshooting chips that might be worth the asking. They’re not Hawkeye chips, but pretty solid. They have one snoopchip that’s probably a slash-and-burn job. One gambling chip for dealers that looked like it was on the up-and-up, and at least three that are going to be feeding your odds back to the maker on the lo-net. Lots of trade and skill options, and most of ‘em probably won’t even burn your chip socket out, but nothing you’d want to lay hands on, unless you’ve been itching to learn how to knit.”

Sam snorted. “What about chemistry or medic skills?” he asked. “We haven’t had a real doctor on our turf for almost a year, now.”

Scott waggled his hand. “Pharmacy, they got. First aid, sure. But nothing specialized like a surgeon or trauma specialist. Which we probably couldn’t afford even if they _did_ have ‘em.”

“Sammie’s right, we need medical,” Bucky said. “Two first aid, and one pharma. Grab some of the better looking skill chips, we can use them for spare parts, if you think you can blank them out. And see if they’ve got a multi-chip slot. I will pay good green to stop having to have people switch chips mid-fight. Obviously, check ‘em for hacks and-- I’ll stop telling you how to do your job.” Bucky held out his hands, a peace offering. Scott was their best tech guy, even if he’d been a rather gifted thief at one point, and a con-artist, and and and. He was on the straight and narrow now, or he was supposed to be.

“You got it, boss,” Scott said. He tapped at his wrist unit and flicked; Bucky’s made a soft ping as the credit transfer link hooked up. “I’ll get us some good stuff, don’t worry.”

“Why am I immediately concerned,” Bucky wondered to Sam as they finished their rounds. Right back at-- “Okay, yeah, I want to go look at the companions. It’s been a long, dry spell. I’ll be fine. No one’s gonna roll me until at least tomorrow morning. Go grab something to eat, and keep your ear to the ground. See if you can find out what Stane’s really up to.”

If anything. But Bucky’d been born paranoid, and old habits died hard. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Sam said. “Don’t forget to wrap it up. I want to go see if I can figure out where Stane’s got the Stark kid stashed. Last one of these, he was up front and center with all the gadgets.”

Stane’s turf had once belonged to the Starks. Trade between them had been better, then. But after Stane had taken over, he’d kept the Stark heir on hand. A show of good faith, he’d called it, but Bucky figured Stane just couldn’t keep his turf running without the kid’s natural talent, a kind of genius that no chip skillset could duplicate.

“Yell if anything important happens,” Bucky told him, and he shifted his holster on his thigh to ride the gun a little more obviously. He didn’t expect anyone to try anything, but better not to tempt the natives. 

The Companions’ circle was a wide swath of road, ending in a cul-de-sac. There were a few buildings that had been put aside for temporary companionship, and the market stage for those interested in purchasing. 

Contract companions paid half out to their owner of origin and kept half for themselves, making everyone involved in the transaction interested in a good price. A standard contract was three months, or six months, with options to renew or return. With skillchips crafted for pleasure and dancing, for language and singing, they were entertainers and teachers, lovers and friends. 

A turf having companions was a sign of prosperity. 

Bucky ran his hand over his left shoulder, making sure his star was visible that marked him as the Commandos leader. The Companions would be showing off all their assets, it seemed only fair to let them know who they were dealing with. 

Pretty gals and beautiful boys, with their silks and finery, their gold chains and silver collars, lined the path that drew him toward the market stage.

Some were looking for a change of scenery, or more money, or better accommodations. Some were looking to leave behind an unpleasant or boring owner.

Bucky spoke with a bewitching blond woman, who offered her hand through the bars of her cage -- symbolic, rather than locking her in, it kept people _out_. And then an enormously tall brute of a man with braids and elaborate facial makeup. Interesting, but not--

His attention was drawn to the stage; an auction rather than a straight fee. Someone was feeling brave. Bucky drew closer to listen as the auction master listed the companion’s accomplishments before they’d get a glimpse.

“--dance like a desert twister,” the master boasted. “Leave you wondering which way is up, in the best kind of ways. Strong hands give skilled and deep massage, both sensual and otherwise. Who doesn’t need to relax and unwind at the end of a hard day? And all that’s not even touching on the sheer _beauty_. That ass alone is worth at least three hundred cred.”

Bucky flicked a glance toward his personal creds, quite a bit different from his turf accounts. “I got three here,” Bucky offered, because hey, auctions were fun. He didn’t have any particular stake in it, yet. Three hundred wasn’t a lot, and maybe they’d get this dancer up on stage, have a little show.

The auction master beamed at Bucky. “Sight unseen, three hundred from the esteemed leader of the Commando turf! Thank you, good sir. And yet, three hardly does him any justice, once you’ve seen him, once you know--”

“Bring him out!” someone yelled roughly from the edges of the crowd. Not, Bucky thought, anyone who would bid. Just someone looking for a free show.

A thin, bald man with coppery skin and a scowl that could raise the dead, lifted a hand. “Four hundred.”

“Four hundred, thank you sir!” The auction master was getting the crowd warmer, more interested. He lauded the companion’s speaking and singing voice, tireless stamina, flawless sense of style, and, of course, much-touted beauty. By the time the bid had reached nine-fifty, the crowd was pressed close against the stage, eager for a glimpse.

The thin man was Bucky’s fiercest competitor. With a twitch that could be mistaken for scratching a hand through his hair, Bucky tabbed his chipslot over from Admin skills (accounting, inventory, law, public speaking) to Agent (spy, facial recognition, turf identification, and a whole slew of sneaky-hidey shit).

_Raza_ , his HUD told him. Higher up in Ten Rings. Enforcer, skilled with long range weapons. A list of crimes against Commandos turf, including materials theft, murder, extortion, and kidnapping.

No one, Bucky thought, that should purchase a companion of any skill. “Twelve hundred.”

The crowd stirred at the sudden jump, and the auction master practically glowed. “Well, now, I think perhaps you discerning people should get to see the goods--”

The crowd broke into a cheer, drowning out whatever else the man said. He laughed and said something else, a little louder, but Bucky wasn’t listening. From behind the curtains had strolled -- no, strode -- no, _strutted_ \-- the most beautiful man Bucky had ever seen. The same one who’d been wearing the red and gold silks, earlier, in the cage. Now he was wearing jewelry and a tasteful dark-colored thong, and... that was it.

His skin was olive, gleaming in the stage lights. The silvery chains that dangled from his waist and neck danced, throwing sparkles of light out into the crowd. His eyes were honey-brown, large and sweet, but his smile was sharp and wicked and _knowing_. He lifted his arms to accept the crowd’s raucous cheering and whistling, showing off well-defined muscle.

“Fifteen hundred,” snapped Raza, focused on the prize. Determined.

Bucky just stared, unable to look away, unable to even _blink_. He’d seen companions before, even touched one of the higher ranked ones for a night, and he’d never seen anything like this before. 

“Fifteen hundred going twice,” the auctioneer called and Bucky shook himself awake. 

“I gotta have him,” Bucky murmured, as much to the man on stage as to himself. “Seventeen hundred.”

“Two thousand!” Raza called, almost before Bucky had finished speaking. The look he turned on Bucky was poisonous. The way he looked at the companion was... not much warmer.

The companion, of course, was far too practiced to obviously pick favorites, but Bucky was certain there was a hint of something like desperation in his eyes when he turned his gaze on Bucky. A plea.

Bucky ran the numbers again, didn’t bother to glare at Raza, keeping his expression neutral. A gunfighter’s face. “Twenty-five hundred.”

The bidding was now almost more captivating for the crowd than the companion. Almost as one, they turned to see what Raza would do.

His mouth twisted like he’d bit down on a lemon, and his eyes ticked aimlessly around the room as he calculated something in his head.

“Twenty-five hundred going once,” the auction master said. “Twenty-five hundred going twice.”

“Three thousand!” Raza snarled, eyes hard on the companion.

Christ’s sweet script, Sam was going to kill him. That was it. Bucky was going to have one night with his new companion and then Sam was going to tear his cyber arm off and beat him to death with it. “Five grand.” No yelling, no glaring, a simple fact. _You’re mine._

The crowd gasped and hushed. Raza growled, staring death and daggers at Bucky and the companion alike, and then stomped out of the stage’s circle, cursing colorfully from between clenched teeth.

The auction master’s, “and sold!” was almost drowned out in the crowd’s cheers.

Bucky’s account flagged red, and he had to do some creative shuffling of finances; an advance on his take for the turf. Which, really, his people couldn’t complain about too much. For a normal year, Bucky only took fifteen percent, which was a good thirty percent below most Bosses. And he had a few things he could sell, to make up the difference. 

As long as his fancy new companion didn’t have a yen for a really dolled up dressing room, Bucky would probably be okay. 

He watched as the man was led off stage and the next lot was coming on. The crowd thinned. After that action, there probably wouldn’t be anything else nearly as exciting. When there was enough room around him to move, Bucky headed back to the contract suite. He had a purchase to pick up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teeeeensy little warning here for some violence and the deaths of a few unnamed bad guys.

Tony closed the door of his cage with a grateful clank, and leaned against the back bars, panting through the adrenaline rush. For a minute there, he’d really been afraid Raza was going to win the auction. That would not have gone well, not after the destruction he’d left behind in the wake of his escape.

Now he just had to convince his new owner — the Boss of the Commandos, if Tony had been hearing right — to keep him rather than selling him back to the Ten Rings. Or worse, Obie.

He put his hands over his face, willing the shaking to stop. The Boss was going to want to see him, sooner rather than later, and he needed to present a confident, cheerful demeanor. He pulled at the companion chip, letting it position his hips and arms, tugging his mouth into a smirk that was oddly both familiar and strange. He’d only had the chip for a few days, having traded for it on the run. His accustomed chips had been left behind, in the Ten Rings’ hands. They’d kept them under lock and key when he wasn’t actually working. Much good it had done them, but the chips were useful, sped things up and helped him make links.

His hands curled around the bars at the top of the cage, showing off his biceps, and he cocked his hip out, watching the door.

“--don’t really give a fuck,” Tony’s new owner was saying as he pushed through the back of the auction stage. “I don’t care what he’s offering. He wanted to buy, he should have been at the auction.”

The bookkeeper was hovering nearby, wringing long-fingered hands together. “But sir,” the man protested. Tony couldn’t tell if he was arguing because of the potential for a powerful and angry client, or because he was getting some sort of kickback. The auction house got a ten percent fee off the top for handling the transaction, which, in the case of Tony’s sale, was substantial. A companion contract usually went for two or three grand, and Tony had taken almost twice that.

Of course, everything after that cut was all his, given that Tony didn’t have an official owner. He’d had to do some programming on the fly to divert the funds to a dummy account, but his so-called owner, Jarvis, didn’t actually exist. 

Tony let the chip kick in, directing the tilt of his head as he leaned toward the Boss, as if irresistibly drawn. The man was gorgeous, as it happened. It wouldn’t be anything like a hardship to go to bed with the guy, even without the chip’s behavior program. The room seemed to brighten as his pupils dilated. Wow, this chip was not leaving anything to chance. “Hey, Boss,” he purred, lower and breathier than his usual speaking voice.

The Boss turned and gave Tony a wide, radiant smile. “You--” He took a step closer, hand reaching out and resting on the bars. The cyberlimb clicked against the metal cage. “Uh… are you good to go, then? All your stuff--” He looked around the mostly empty cage, the floor adorned with silks and padding. Tony’s street clothes were stuffed into a hidden pocket beneath the pad. He didn’t have anything else. Not anymore.

“I’m all yours, Boss.” Tony wanted to look at that cyberlimb, but the companion chip kept his gaze on the guy’s face, on that lush mouth. “Packed and ready to travel.”

“Lovely,” the guy said, and it was hard to tell if he meant Tony or the situation. In either case, those pale blue eyes were drinking in Tony’s face, body, hands, flickering back to his face. “Come on out of there and we’ll get the paperwork signed.”

...Crap. Looked like he was going to lose his street clothes, too. Tony didn’t let his smile waver. “You bet, Boss. Want me to put on the wrap, or are you showing me off?” He toed the scraps of silk on the floor.

“Put on the wrap,” the Boss said. “You’re gonna attract attention either way, but there’s less like to be a riot if you’re not mostly naked.” He turned to the bookkeeper. “Send that up to my caravan.”

“The cage?” the bookkeeper squeaked.

“Yeah. I like the aesthetic.”

The man looked like he might protest, but -- apparently remembering the very large percentage he was getting from the sale -- scurried to take care of it. The Boss thumbed the contract table and pulled up a light display of Tony’s contract. A standard three month -- Tony hadn’t had time to get more elaborate. 

“So, uh,” the Boss said. “My name is Bucky Barnes, you can call me Bucky. Or Boss, if you’re more comfortable with that. My turf’s small, but stable. We haven’t had interstreet war in the seven years since I took over, and while trade’s a little shy at the moment, no one goes hungry on my watch. Are you good with what I’m offering?” 

Tony spread his hands. “You paid, your rules,” he said. Especially given how _much_ Bucky had paid for him. “But it sounds good. Impressive, really.” He’d have said that no matter what, but he was actually impressed. Keeping even a small turf stable was no small accomplishment.

Bucky leaned in and gave his ret-scan to the contract. “You got a name, beautiful?”

“Tony. Or whatever you want to call me, Bucky.” He winked, then leaned in for his own scan and hoped Bucky wouldn’t have the scan cross-referenced to pull up his name.

Bucky rolled up the holo and thumbed the console again, downloading the contract to his personal files. He tapped behind his ear. “Sammie, I-- yes, Sam, I know. Right, keep an eye out, and gather the crew. I think it’ll be safer if we don’t stay the night.” He turned to Tony. “I might have-- _possibly_. Picked a fight with Ten Rings buying you, so I gotta say I hope you’re worth it.”

There was definitely going to be trouble with Ten Rings as soon as Raza reported back to the Mandarin. Tony gave up his most winsome smile. “Do my best for you,” he promised, and then leaned into Bucky’s space, watching Bucky’s eyes widen, just a bit. “And let me say, my best is like nothing you can imagine. Boss.”

That was almost certainly true, given that Bucky had bought a companion and Tony’s specialty was mechanics. But hey, everyone exaggerated on their resume.

“You are distractin’ as hell,” Bucky said, and before Tony could come up with an appropriate -- or appropriately inappropriate -- comeback to that, Bucky dragged him in, tipped Tony’s face up with his thumb, and took possession of Tony’s mouth. 

Bucky’s lips were soft, firm, a little dry but warm and supple, moving against Tony’s mouth with gentle encouragement.

Tony let himself fall into it, leaning in to press his chest against Bucky’s, winding one arm around Bucky’s neck and letting the other trail down Bucky’s arm, teasing. He opened his mouth to Bucky’s exploration, and the chip prodded him into a soft moan. It was a little startling to realize that the chip hadn’t taken over earlier.

If there was anything lacking, Bucky didn’t seem to notice, taking the moan as an invitation to sweep his tongue inside Tony’s mouth, plundering, taking, demanding more. And then, as quick as it had started, it was over. Bucky steadied Tony on his feet, and then asked, almost nonsensically, “Can you shoot a gun?”

Tony blinked at the non sequitur, mind still half on that kiss. “Uh. Yeah, yeah, I can shoot.” He wasn’t a bad shot, even without a sharpshooting chip.

“Good to know,” Bucky said. He tied Tony’s robe a little tighter, fingers lingering for a moment on the knot and the soft skin just under the knot. “This here’s my hold-out piece. Safety, trigger, scope. She holds five shots; make them count.” He showed Tony the tiny gun, almost dainty, with blued steel and a pearl-handle grip. One side of the grip displayed a carved red star that matched the one on Bucky’s arm. Tucked it into Tony’s robe. “Just in case. Raza’s a bastard, and he’s led raids into our territory. I didn’t think you wanted to go home with him, but he’s probably going to take it personally.”

“It’s possible,” Tony hedged. “I’m grateful for the save. I did _not_ want him taking the contract.” He brushed his fingers over the gun’s grip, adjusting the angle just slightly for a faster draw. If Raza and his bullies jumped them, every second would count.

“All right,” Bucky said. “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to take you into the hostel, up the road, and to the left. We’re going to get a room, and Raza will think he’s got time. Out the back window, down the side of the building, and out to the edge of the street, where we’ll meet up with my people. If anyone tries to grab you, or stop us, don’t hesitate. If I fall, you run. My people will take care of you. The password for tonight is _Freight Car_. You got it?”

Wow, this guy was organized. Tony was beginning to understand how he managed to keep his turf stable despite having Ten Rings and Stane both on his borders. “Hostel,” Tony repeated dutifully. “Out the back. Freight Car.” His consulted the chip’s knowledge base and then cocked his head. “Who owns my contract, if you go down?”

“Sam Wilson’s my second, although he’ll probably hand you over to Scott Lang faster than you can blink,” Bucky said. “Scott’s a good guy, he’ll be kind.”

“Okay,” Tony said, and then smiled up at Bucky. “But let’s hope that doesn’t become an issue.”

“It shouldn’t,” Bucky said, “but _always be prepared_ was something of a motto to the man who trained me. It sunk in, even without a chipset. All right. I’m going to act a little drunk, I want you to-- do your thing, you’d know better’n me. Hostel, bed, fun stuff. That’s all we’re doing here.”

Bucky slid an arm around Tony’s waist, fingers gripping his hip.

Tony slung his arm over Bucky’s shoulder and molded his body against Bucky’s. “Come on, then, hot stuff,” he giggled, which felt _weird_ , but the chip was insistent. He pushed the door open and checked that there was a little audience as he said, “I cannot _wait_ to see you undressed, gorgeous. You’re good for a hostel room, right?”

“Good for a lot of things,” Bucky agreed, and his hand wandered playful from Tony’s hip to his waist, to his ass. He walked a little heavy, moving them erratically from one side of the street to the other, which gave both of them the time and excuse to look around. Bucky pushed him up against a street lamp for a moment, nuzzling at his ear. “Gonna get you hooked into our comms as soon as we can. I see three Ten Rings. Any that you know?” 

Tony scanned the street under the guise of looking for the hostel. “A few,” he agreed. At least four. “No one especially dangerous. Lookouts. They’ll definitely know where we check in and which room we get.” Tony moaned, and leaned up to Bucky’s ear. “You’ll want your people to clear the alley before we come down.”

“Stane’s gonna go to war with Ten Rings over this,” Bucky muttered. “This was his party, his idea, and Ten Rings is gonna break peace? For a _companion_? Not that you ain’t gorgeous, but _really_?”

“There’s a little more to it than that,” Tony admitted. “But if they’re fighting each other, they’re not bothering you so much, right?”

“Unfortunately, the enemy of my enemy is still my fuckin’ enemy,” Bucky growled, then tapped his earpiece again. “Clint, I need a dumpster fire disaster please, behind the hostel. Ten minutes.”

Bucky led Tony across to the hostel, and then groped him rather obviously, impatient, as they checked in to a room. One thigh went between Tony’s legs and Bucky’s hand was on the back of his neck, holding him in place.

Tony made eager noises and winked at the clerk over Bucky’s shoulder as Bucky pulled him toward the elevator.

“Hold this, darlin’,” Bucky said, flicking the room’s chipkey at Tony between two fingers. “Wrong side of the hall, damnit.” Bucky checked the sight lines, pulling them into an alcove on the fourth floor, letting Tony take the outside to block what he was doing. Pulled out a small, static-free bag. “Chip swap. I’m afraid B&E’s not part of my normal skillset.” He ran a hand through Tony’s hair. “Have you ever used a hacker-chip? This may be a bit disorienting.” He nuzzled behind Tony’s ear. “Jesus, who installed this thing in you? Lucky if you don’t have an infection--” and then--

The companion chip came out, and for a moment it was Tony, just Tony, his own skills, his own personality, nothing else. 

Bucky blew into the dataport, soft and warm. 

_Jesus_ , that was like a soft whisper in his ear, shivery lightning all up and down his spine, but a thousand times more intense. Tony shivered and shuddered, eyes fluttering closed, and then the hacker chip slotted home and powered up, and Tony gasped with the electric flood of the connection. Instinctively he reached out for the toolset, and it wasn’t exactly the same as his own personal chips -- of course not; those had been homebuilt -- but the tools were similar enough. He pulled up a mod function and scanned the chipkey, pinging at the ports he was going to need.

He felt a little weird, standing around in the hostel hall in nothing but a flimsy wrap of silk and some truly ludicrous underthings, and he realized that it had been the companion chip suppressing that vague embarrassment. Complex little thing, and he reminded himself to hack it, later. Assuming he survived the night.

The chipkey was nothing complex, just a passcode with Bucky’s fingerprint embedded in it; Tony touched it to the door on the correct side of the hall and logged all the failcodes and countdown warnings. A flick of the codebreaker, and he’d coaxed the chipkey to open the door they wanted. He grinned as the door opened.

The room was unoccupied, thank goodness. Tony waved Bucky in ahead of him and then closed the door and considered its lock. Raza and his goons would _probably_ wait to ambush them as they left the hostel, but just in case they decided to storm the place, and as long as he had a hacker chip in anyway... He slipped a cryptcode into the door and powered up the extreme security measures -- electrified door frame and a dose of sleeping gas -- and set them to deploy if the door opened before morning. He tossed the chipkey on the table and turned back to find Bucky watching him.

“You’re quick,” Bucky said, a touch of gruff admiration in his tone. “Chip head? I’ve got about two dozen sim-sets I can run, but it always takes me a few minutes to transition from one to the other. Why don’t you have a double-port?” Bucky didn’t really wait for an answer, went around securing the room and flicking a glance through the curtain at the alley below. He raided the suite’s wet bar, pouring a glass of whiskey. He took a sip. Ordered another. Soaked a washcloth in the liquor and then proceeded to make a quick and dirty trash-can bomb. “Only if we need it. The hostel hasn’t done anything to us.” 

Tony nodded approval. It was a little disconcerting how attracted he was to Bucky, even without the companion chip urging him on. He’d always had a thing for smart, competent people. “Did have a double-port,” he said. Actually, he’d had a homegrown port that would slot three chips at a time. Most people didn’t have strong enough neural pathways to support it, but Tony had installed his when he was sixteen. “Ten Rings didn’t think I needed more than one at a time.” He rubbed his hand over his neck. It was still tender, where they’d ripped out his triple-slot and installed a hack-job single. Another way they’d tried to control him.

“Come on, Clint, pick up the pace a bit,” Bucky muttered. “Okay, there-- Things are going to get noisy. There might be some shooting, and you might worry about that. Clint’s got an advanced Hawkeye chipset, and quite a bit of training on his own, I promise, he is not going to shoot you by accident.” 

Bucky inserted a thin rod into the window’s frame and with a quick flick, removed the insulation tubing, taking the shatterproof pane out and set it aside on the floor.

Tony checked the little gun Bucky had given him, and pressed his back against the wall, watching Bucky work. He glanced out the window. “You have a rappelling rope in your pocket?” he wondered.

“Nope,” Bucky said. He leaned a bit, glancing down at the ground at least four stories down. “Do you want your old chip back? Might make this a little easier if you think I’m the hero, rather than just crazy.”

Tony considered it, glanced out the window again, then sighed a little. “Yeah, give me the chip.” He’d be able to act more freely if he wasn’t so distracted by the feel of silk on his skin or the way the chains moved under it. He gave the hacker chip a little mental caress of farewell and pulled it free, slotting the companion chip back into place.

That took a couple of seconds to properly settle in his brain, and then he was looking at Bucky again with wide eyes. “What’s next, Boss?”

“C’mere,” Bucky said, half-sitting in the window frame. He tugged Tony into his arms, and appeared to be waiting for something. There was a yell, like someone had just stubbed their toe, or walked into a wall, angry and drunk and exaggerated. “Three. Two… one--”

Something exploded out in the street, noise and smoke and alarms. Bucky tightened his grip around Tony’s waist and rolled out the fucking window. Tony didn’t even have time to squeak before Bucky was twisting them in the air like a cat, Tony caught in a delicate bridal carry, and he touched down on the street, landing on his toes like a goddamn ballerina.

“Mind if we drop in?” Bucky said to someone who was standing right there.

“You ain’t as funny as you think you are,” the man said. “What the hell is this, why we getting chased out of the market by Ten Rings? And don’t tell me it’s for this pretty piece of ass.”

Tony let Bucky set him on the ground, but didn’t quite let go of Bucky’s arm. “Why thank you,” he told the other man. “My ass _is_ very pretty.”

“You _bought_ a companion,” the man said, ignoring Tony completely. “Why?”

“Mostly to piss off Raza,” Bucky said. “The pretty ass doesn’t hurt.”

“Congratulations, mission accomplished, can we go now?”

Bucky opened his mouth to say something, and then there was gunfire, practically all around them. Bucky didn’t crouch or flinch, but kept Tony behind him. Bullets bounced off his cyber-arm. The other man skinned a piece and was returning fire. Providing cover. Bucky backed up, nudging Tony carefully down the alley. “Don’t fall,” he cautioned. “We have backup coming.” A glint of light, somewhere above them, and Bucky whirled, shooting at what seemed to be no more than a twitching curtain. 

A scream, and a man toppled out of the window, hitting the ground with a wet thud.

Tony tried to push past the companion chip’s insistence that the safest place to be was _behind Bucky_ , and scanned the alley. There was a flickering streetlight, piles of suspicious-smelling trash. _There_ , behind two crates; that would be decent cover for a few minutes. He hooked his fingers in the back of Bucky’s shirt and pulled until they were both behind the crates.

The other man did something, and wings -- metal wings and a freaking jetpack -- sprouted from what had looked like nothing more than a backpack. He leaped, going into the sky, providing more comprehensive cover. 

A soldier, probably one of Ten Rings’ fanatics, drove down the alley on a motorcycle, shooting a rapid fire machine gun wildly. “Stay here,” Bucky yelled, and then leaped. He got in front of the bike, swept the guy off with a blow from that silver arm, grabbed the bike’s handles with the other hand and flipped the entire thing. He jumped again, and landed on the bike, neat as could be, speeding off in the other direction.

 _Jesus_. Tony didn’t know whether to be terrified or turned on. Maybe both. Both was an option, right? He got out his little gun and flicked the safety off, ready to defend.

He was going to owe Bucky -- and the Commandos -- so much more than a few blowjobs.

The guy Bucky knocked off the bike was groaning, something was probably broken, but he wasn’t dead, and he was looking more than a little pissed off. “There you are, you little maggot,” he snarled, reaching for the machine gun.

Tony leveled the gun, prayed the scope was true, and squeezed. The fanatic flopped over and stopped moving. Tony took a breath, let it out, and made himself crawl toward the dropped weapon. Even if he couldn’t use it, weapons had value. The Commandos would want it.

A moment later, Bucky was back. There was blood on his neck and his shirt, but he seemed steady enough. “Get on, hold on tight,” he told Tony. 

Tony clambered up onto Bucky’s back without asking any questions. Time would be of the essence, he knew. 

Bucky reached around, pulling Tony’s arms close around him. “I got you,” he said. “Not gonna let anything bad happen. Promise.” And then Bucky was running, fast, light, delicate, bouncing off the objects as if he’d left them in his path deliberately for his own, personal use. 

He was _fast_ \-- faster than humanly possible, pushing at least forty miles an hour once they got into the open. A truck with a covered top pulled out from a side street, getting closer. 

“We’re gonna barn swallow, watch your head,” Bucky yelled, and--

Jumped into the back of the moving truck, over the tailgate. They rolled onto dusty floorboards, Bucky underneath, providing a little bit of cushioning. Not really a lot, Tony observed, his knees and elbows stinging.

“Sam’s scouting ahead for a clear path,” one of the men in the back said. “We got most of our trade goods, and since Raza’s pissed at us anyway--” He held up a golden chain that Raza commonly wore around his neck. There was a key dangling from the end. “I don’t know what this is for, but I bet it’s important.”

“Good job, Clint,” Bucky said, sitting up with a wince. “S’anyone got a med-chip with them? Tony’s got an infected chip-slot, and-- I think I’ve been shot.”

Tony stared at that dangling key. That... locked the safe where Raza had kept Tony’s custom chips, and who knew what else. “I know what it’s for,” he said, and his voice sounded very far away. 

Clint looked like he was getting ready to ask any number of questions, most of which Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to answer when Bucky did them the enormously distracting favor of passing out.


	3. Chapter 3

The truck was joined by several war rigs, armored cars fitted with guns and runflat tires, and a pair of Striker Hoverbikes. The guy with wings, Sam, as Clint called him, landed in their truck after about ten minutes. “We’re clear to the walls,” he reported. “Sharon’s got the gate down for us, we’ll be safe and home in five minutes and then these Ten Rings assholes can eat forcefield for all I care.”

Sam finished his report, then looked down at Bucky, who was laying with his head in Tony’s lap, still out cold. Clint had done a quick bandage on the wound, but it didn’t look like that was going to be enough.

“You got a name?” he demanded, suddenly noticing Tony.

“Tony.” He figured the clothes would explain the rest well enough, for now. He gave Sam a once-over, knowing how it would be read and not really caring. This was Bucky’s second-in-command. The one who, if Bucky died of this wound, would probably pass Tony’s contract off to Scott. Which was a name that didn’t belong to anyone Tony had seen yet.

He looked down and brushed the hair from Bucky’s face. “You got medskills behind that forcefield?” he asked.

“Not so much as we’d like,” Sam said. “Buck’s tough, though. Trauma dampener, supercharged white cells, healing nanites. He got all the high grade bio-toys. Paid for ‘em, too. Let me see that chip-slot of yours, he said it was infected.”

Sam tipped his own head to show off the little red cross on a white background, a dermal tat that indicated someone was brain-trained first aid, not just chip-skill. 

Tony was impressed; not many were willing to take on the rigors of brain-train. He thought about refusing anyway, at least until they were safely behind the Commandos’ forcefield, but it was an alternative to being asked awkward questions. Tony shifted around as much as he could, putting his back to Sam and ducking his chin to make access easier.

Sam was quick, practical, and a little less tender than Tony could have wished. He swabbed out the area, making the companion chip in his head go crazy for a moment, then, “Hold still, this’ll sting a mite--” squeezed the skin behind Tony’s ear. Dizzying sensation of a headwound combined with the feeling that something had been squished out, like a lanced boil or a really big zit. And then the fresh, painful sting of an antiseptic wipe, followed by a poke. “There, that’s your local vaccines, too. Don’t know if you’ve had any for red skull fever or not. Better safe, right?”

Tony probably had not been vaccinated for that; he’d spent his whole life in the Stark turf -- now Stane’s -- and they didn’t have any Hydra on their borders. Red skull fever came out of Hydra’s bioweapon labs, but it was a delicate virus, not able to survive more than an hour outside of a host and not easily transmitted. “Yeah, best safe,” he agreed. “Thanks.” He tried to recall the turf maps as he’d last learned them, though that had been some time ago. He’d left most of the administration to Stane. “Thanks. You have Hydra on your borders?”

“Used to _be_ Hydra,” Sam corrected. “Of course you don’t know--” He patted Tony on the shoulder, his hand warm, callused. “You’re cradling the Winter Soldier like he was a sick puppy.”

Tony stared at Sam, then looked down at Bucky. The _Winter Soldier_ had been the most feared Hydra enforcer for _decades_ , before he’d suddenly vanished. Knocked off by competition, rumor had said. Maybe even a Black Widow. Bucky didn’t look old enough to have been around for as long as the Winter Soldier -- but then, Tony didn’t know what kind of bio enhancements the Boss was packing.

And having seen him in action... It was believable, if only just.

The Winter Soldier’s name was _Bucky?_ Tony put a hand over his mouth to keep himself from laughing at the incongruity. “Huh. Okay. Okay, I’m... Right. I was... not expecting that.”

The truck bounced over a heavy groove in the road. “Lights up in three, Sharon,” Sam said, tapping his ear. “Two… we’re all clear.”

Behind them, the sky took fire, red and orange lightning bolts screaming upward from the ground to blend with a dark opal dome. 

“Ten Rings could probably make it through our defenses,” Clint said, lazily. He was laying on one of the truck benches, looking about ready to fall asleep. “But it’d take ‘em long enough, we’d know they were coming. You can relax.”

“Well, I don’t know about _relax_ ,” Sam said. “But Ten Rings won’t be taking you back while we figure out what to do.”

“Thank you,” Tony said, and meant it. If he had his own chips, he could probably upgrade their defensive grid, offer some pattern analysis and weapons breakdowns for them on the Ten Rings’ capabilities. He took a breath, but Bucky stirred a little, then, snapping the slender thread of the thought Tony had been chasing. He stroked Bucky’s forehead, murmuring soothingly. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too much farther to their HQ, and then the Commandos could unleash whatever med skills they had to hand.

Another few miles and they pulled up to an enormous, if ugly and blocky, building. A few soldiers scrambled in the back, and then stopped, sharp, at the sight of Tony.

“Get the Boss to the infirmary,” Sam barked. “You, come here. Is this yours?” He gave Tony a hand out of the truck, which turned out to be good, because the road was gravel under Tony’s bare feet. Sam pointed to the iron cage, hovering neatly on its repulsors, that had apparently been in with all the supplies from the Market.

“Yes, that’s mine.” It looked like his, anyway.

“Great, so, maybe you wanna hop in and lock yourself in for a bit. I’ll have some of these yahoos haul you up to the Boss’s room and bring you something to eat,” Sam said. “But I don’t have time for you underfoot, and I don’t want to keep explaining you to the troops. You’re… distracting.”

Fair enough. Tony nodded and climbed into the cage, then thumbed the lock that could only be reached from the inside. “Will you let me know?” he asked. “When there’s news?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, and it sounded like he meant it, even if he was already looking past Tony. Objectifying him, not so much as something he wanted to fuck, but something that was in the way, that needed to be moved, dealt with. Situation with the Companion resolved, Sam was moving on to more _important_ things.

Sam barked orders as he walked away, and two soldiers, probably just barely out of their teens, came over to move the cage. The repulsors were top-rate, keeping for a smooth and steady ride, even if the two kids were flushed, watching Tony surreptitiously as they worked. 

They spoke to each other, as if Tony was a pet, or something that couldn’t possibly understand. The chip reminded him that this was normal, in fact, preferred behavior.

He tried to pay attention to the route they took him, but his chip-influenced eye kept getting distracted by decoration and (a couple of times) some attractive soldiers going the other way.

All too soon, they were pushing him through a door into a room. A bedroom, in fact, spacious for a single occupant, as would be expected for a Boss of even a fairly small turf.

The bed was a simple platform, piled thick with blankets and pillows, mismatched, with a heavy preference toward red. A simple desk with basic datajack cables resting neatly on what looked like a hand carved rack. Half the room was given over to what looked like a sparring mat, punching bag, and virtual training hall. An entire wall of weapons, mostly long arms, and a lovingly polished set of knives. 

There was a standing closet, neatly sealed and smelling of cedar. On the wall, next to the closet, was the room’s only non-functional decoration, a holo that flicked through a half dozen pics. Each moment, captured, seemed rare and precious somehow. 

Bucky, younger, standing in rugged soldier’s clothing, laughing with another man, taller, with pale hair and a bright blue uniform. They looked happy. That one faded out to show a couple of kids playing stickball, the boy who was probably Bucky as a child, hitting a line drive. A third revolve and the blond again, this time he was hunched over a pad of paper, drawing something. Two different sketches, the artist signature S-scribble, R-scribble flourishing in the corners. And a final picture, a ballet dancer in a black costume, doing stretches at the bar, her hair flame-red.

Tony waited until his handlers had left, then peeled up the padded flooring to make sure his tiny stash of clothes and cred key were safe. Reassured, he sat on the floor of his cage and tried to focus on the details of the technical solution that had let him escape the Ten Rings, considering upgrades and additions, as a way to pass the time while he waited for word.

Several hours passed, and while there was all sorts of noise and commotion outside, it seemed the Boss’s rooms were away from the general business of the turf, which made sense. There was a rap at the door, and then a long pause. “Excuse me, uh, Mister Tramp, uh, are you awake?”

Tony turned his head to stare at the door. _Tramp?_ A companion was no common _tramp_ , even if Tony hadn’t trained to the role-- He tamped down the indignation, probably chip-enhanced. “I’m awake,” he returned, a little coldy.

“Hi, right,” the person said, “Yeah, we don’t have a lot of fetch-and-carry jobs, but Mr. Wilson told me to come up here and bring you some food--” 

The kid who came in was maybe fourteen, on a good day, with brown hair that stuck up wildly in all directions. “I didn’t know what you’d like, so I brought a little of everything.” He had a tray that practically weighed as much as he did, and he was carrying it like it might explode. “Wow, you’re really in a _cage_! Harry told me that, but I didn’t believe it, uh, where did you-- I mean, can you come out? I can just sit this here on the desk, but-- My name’s Peter, sir. Peter Parker.”

Christ, it was just a kid. Tony sighed a little and waved toward the desk. “That’s fine,” he said. “I’m not locked in; the rest of the world is locked _out_. Don’t you have any companions on this turf?” Sure, the kid was young, but Tony couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t know about companions.

“Aunt May would skin me if I went down to the Scarlet Witch,” Peter said, fervently. “But they’re not locked up, they have rooms and silks and--” The kid turned as red as a tomato. “Anyway. Soup’s here. And bread, and a little beet salad, and grilled partridge, and three different sweets, if you like sweets. And coffee. Or I could get tea, if you like tea instead.”

“Coffee’s perfect,” Tony assured the kid. “Thank you. For future reference, though? Tramp’s not a very polite thing to call someone.”

“Right, yes, of course, si-- um, Mr. Companion,” Peter said. He gave Tony a hasty sort of bob, almost knocking the tray over. He straightened it on the desk, bobbed again, and then ran out the door so fast Tony hoped he didn’t fall down the stairs or something. Assuming there were stairs.

And he was gone before Tony could ask if there had been any word on Bucky’s condition. He sighed and leaned against the bars.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Sam to send word. It was just that he was fairly certain that keeping a companion in the loop was _way_ far down on the list of priorities.

He could only sulk for so long, though, with the smell of coffee in his nostrils. _Good_ coffee, not the watered-down dirt that the Ten Rings had fed him. He thumbed the cage open again and approached the desk, scooping up the still-warm cup and sipping.

The food, Tony noticed, was all home-grown, picked or traded, and not the vat-beef and shaped carbs that Tony was used to. The beets were reddish purple, smelled sharp, and were sliced irregularly, like someone had done the whole thing in an actual _kitchen_ , with heat and spices and whatever it was that people did with food that didn’t come out of a catering box.

Curiouser and curiouser, Tony thought, sampling the food gingerly. It tasted... odd. But not in a bad way. More vibrant, somehow. He sampled his way across the tray, tasting little bits of this and that, trying combinations of things. He let out a moan that was verging on obscene when he tried a bit of one of the sweets -- verging on too-sweet and rich with butter. Where the hell did the Commandos get _fresh food?_ Even if it was only for the Boss’ household, it was an amazing luxury.

Before he was really aware of it, Tony had eaten everything on the tray, and if he’d run his finger over the sauces to get the last little bit, no one needed to know but him. Feeling pleasantly full and a little bit sleepy, he climbed back into his cage, thumbed the lock, and curled up in the silks. All he needed now was some music, and maybe an engineering chip and he would have had everything he ever needed.

* * *

There wasn’t much that Sam could do for Bucky, besides get Jenn and Bruce to hold him down while Sam dug out the bullet. Bucky’s adrenal system was kicked up to fifteen, and he ran through most normal sedatives and painkillers so fast it wasn’t worth wasting them. And they’d used the last of Hydra’s special drugs a few years back.

So it was bite down on the leather coated stick and try not to let his combat reflexes kick in while Sam dug around in a hole in Bucky’s shoulder with forceps and a scalpel. 

But finally it was over. Sam dusted the whole thing with sealant and an antibiotic powder and told him to _rest_ with an expression that said he doubted that Bucky was capable of such a luxury.

Bucky checked the bandage to make sure the bleeding had mostly stopped. “I’ll want reports in the morning,” he said, grabbing a protein bar on his way out of medical. They were terrible, high calorie meal bars that tasted vaguely like someone had screamed "chocolate" in another room, but chewing was _exhausting_ and Bucky didn’t want to go down to the kitchens, not this late.

Sam looked like he was about to say something else, then shrugged, like whatever it was could wait.

Great, fantastic, Bucky decided. Whatever, it _could_ wait. Right now what Bucky wanted was a nap and a shower. Probably in that order because falling asleep in the shower was not a good plan.

He waved Sam off and went up to his quarters. 

Bucky opened the door, took two steps inside, and--

“Oh, Christ, look at you,” Bucky murmured. He’d-- well, he hadn’t really forgotten about Tony, but he wasn’t sure he was expecting the companion. In his bedroom. Which, of course, that’s exactly where a companion should be, but somehow, Bucky hadn’t really thought about the man, skin all warm and glowing, laying in a nest of silks.

In a _cage_.

Like a present, a delicious gift, just waiting for Bucky to unwrap and open up.

Tony stirred a little and then stretched luxuriously, putting all that beautiful olive skin and surprisingly toned muscle on display. He hummed and his eyes blinked open slowly, sleepy and vague until he spotted Bucky.

Tony sat up, grabbing at the bar of his cage to pull himself closer. “You’re back,” he said. “You’re okay.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “Just another scar to fade out. Wouldn’t have been so bad, ‘cept it was a churn round.”

Churn rounds mushroomed on impact, instead of passing through a target, for maximum damage. One of Stark’s main staples, really. An empire turf, built on efficient, lethal weaponry. 

“And you’re up and walking around?” Tony scrambled at the interior cage controls and rather suddenly was right next to Bucky, pressing up against his side, an arm curling around his waist. “You should be in bed,” he chided.

“You smell nice,” Bucky said, nonsensically, sticking his nose in Tony’s hair, the rich, thick locks shiny, half-starting to curl. “Bed, yeah, sure, bed sounds good. Take me to bed.” He knew he was a little light-headed from field surgery, the adrenal pump in his system giving him all the homegrown pain killers and happy chems it could produce. He was high as a damn kite, and he knew it. 

Tony tugged him gently toward the bed and Bucky willingly followed. Bucky had meant to collapse there anyway, but Tony sat him on the edge instead of letting him just tip over, and then gracefully knelt and started to unfasten Bucky’s boots for him.

Bucky let out a long breath, not quite a groan, but wanting to go that way. Tony was lithe, gorgeous, and _kneeling_. All but naked except for that skimpy little bit of nothing, and a handful of gold chains that glittered on his skin. Bucky ran a hand through Tony’s hair, down to the back of his neck. “You are so… damn pretty.” 

A good companion didn’t need to be pretty to be valuable. But flexibility wasn’t anything that a chip-set could give someone. Bucky absently wondered what else he could do. 

Tony glanced up at Bucky through thick eyelashes, a tiny, pleased smile tugging at his lips. “I’m glad you think so.” He tugged the boots off and set them aside, and looked up at Bucky again, the slight tilt of his head showing off the long, lean column of his neck. “How can I make you more comfortable?”

A jumble of hazy, sexually charged images ran through Bucky’s mind, too fast to grab any single one of them, and just slow enough for his body to respond with a stir of heat and interest. And then he became rather aware that he was drenched in sweat, covered in blood and dirt, and probably stank to high heaven.

He hadn’t wanted to fall asleep in the shower, but-- Tony was a _companion_.

“Draw me a bath, maybe, an’ help me clean up?” Bucky wondered. He could lean back in the tub and let Tony wash his hair, that might even be better than sex.

“Of course,” Tony said demurely. “Can you undress yourself, or will you need help?”

He shook his head. “I can manage.” He wasn’t positive that he could, but he was mostly down to his tac-pants and socks, so not much work to do. “Bathroom’s that--” He waved a hand. Of course, once Tony sauntered off in that direction -- Bucky couldn’t look away as those hips and thighs worked some sort of magic spell on him -- Bucky had to deal with the rest of the equation.

Once he was undressed, did he just walk in, all naked, or what?

Especially once certain interested bits of him were… well, interested.

Bucky sighed, gave his erection a glare. Well, Tony was a companion. He’d probably seen it all before, and then some. Bath. He needed one before he even thought about-- any of the rest of it. _Fresh from the fight_ might make for some good holo romances, but the reality was a little more unpleasantly fragrant than that.

He waited a few minutes for the bath to fill, and once he heard the water turn off, Bucky got to his feet and went to join his companion.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut-averse readers, click here to skip the bath and subsequent smuts!

Tony knelt by the tub, accessing the knowledgebase in the companion chip as he waited. Not that it wouldn’t guide and hint him toward the correct behavior anyway, but he liked to know what he was getting into.

At least he knew most of what was supposed to happen in a bath, even if he hadn’t done any of it for anyone else before. But that was what a chip was for. 

As for the rest of it... Tony had seen the way Bucky’s eyes had darkened with desire, looking down at Tony. He shouldn’t get up to anything especially vigorous if he was recovering from a churn shot, but the companion chip laid out several options that shouldn’t be too much of a strain.

Tony was beginning to wonder if Bucky had decided to pass out instead of having a bath, after all, when suddenly he was there, standing in the door, pausing to look around. Tony had found towels and a robe, soap and shampoo and conditioner, a comb, some lotion, and laid it all out within easy reach.

Bucky was broad shouldered, even more obviously when he was bare-chested. A heal-plaster was stuck near the collarbone, just spotted in the very center with blood. On the other side, the arm, thick and metallic with shifting plates, looked to have been installed with little thought for comfort. Red and pink scars scrawled over the left side of Bucky’s chest, leading to the attachment points which looked as if they might have been welded in place.

Some of those scars, looking carefully, seemed more like someone trying to claw the metal one _off_ , rather than old injury from the loss of the original limb or the installation of the cyber arm.

He had long legs, and thick thighs covered with a dusting of black curls, and he was absolutely and deliciously naked, skin glistening faintly with perspiration, dirt and grease and blood smeared here and there.

Tony thought, somewhat vaguely, that without the companion chip, he might have been embarrassed to be caught staring. But a companion found nothing unusual or shameful in nudity. Tony let himself enjoy the moment, drinking in the sight of Bucky’s muscular body and half-hard cock, then smiled as he met Bucky’s gaze. He gestured toward the bath. “I hope the temperature’s good for you.” He offered up a hand, for support as Bucky climbed into the tub.

“Not sure I’d notice,” Bucky said, leaning heavily on Tony as he stepped into the bath. “Warm water-- still kinda novel.” He twisted to sit, knees up a little, poking out of the water, and leaned back against the edge. He groaned with combined appreciation and pain before settling back. 

Tony picked up a cloth and the soap. “Not long on luxury, Hydra?” He smoothed the cloth up Bucky’s arm, then hesitated before reaching for the metal arm. “Anything I should know, here? Water won’t harm it, I assume.”

“Nah, I can swim an’ everything,” Bucky said. “Salt water’s kinda corrosive, an’ I have to have maintenance for that, but it’s not a problem that comes up that often.” He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, displaying his throat, and a scruff of probably-hadn’t-shaved-for-a few-days around his neck. 

“Good. Tell me if there’s anything I should avoid, or if I hurt you accidentally.” Tony worked the soap into a lather and began to gently scrub the dirt and sweat from Bucky’s arms and shoulders. He consulted the chip, then added, “Do you want me to shave you?”

Bucky opened one eye. “Hand steady?”

Tony held up one hand in demonstration. He didn’t even need the chip for that; he’d learned to lay circuits when most other kids his age had been learning the alphabet.

“A’ight, I trust you,” Bucky said. He let his eyes slip shut again, letting Tony do all the work of bathing and washing him off, although it was probably more exhaustion and injury than actual laziness. Tony got the feeling that Bucky was not much for decadence.

The first pass, according to the chip, was for actual cleanliness. Tony did a careful but thorough job of that, soaping and then rinsing one limb at a time, taking advantage of the slippery slide of it to massage what had to be sore muscles, cautiously at first and then more firmly as Bucky groaned appreciation.

Tony washed down Bucky’s torso, then nudged him to sit forward so Tony could perch on the back of the tub to reach Bucky’s back and then wash his hair. Bucky let out a small groan as Tony worked the lather down his scalp, a sound that seemed to lodge directly in Tony’s groin.

Hair done, he helped Bucky to lie back again, head tipped back so Tony could reach with the razor.

“Keep gettin’ tempted to shave my damn head, but,” Bucky said, lazily running his fingers over the water, “not today.” He settled in as Tony lathered shaving cream over his face. “Sam will, by the way, actually bring me back to life for the purposes of killing me, if you end up being a Ten Rings assassin or somethin’, so do us both a favor, an’ if that’s your plan, can you wait until tomorrow?”

Tony laughed. “Sorry to disappoint; I’m nothing nearly as exciting as that.” He carefully dragged the razor over Bucky’s throat. It was awkward, doing it for someone else, but the chip helped align the angle of his hand, and after a moment, he adjusted.

“Yeah, no,” Bucky said. “Assassins aren’t exciting. Give me a nice clean fight. Prefer to not be fightin’ at all, but seems no one cares for my preferences ‘cause we got Hydra breathing down our necks from two borders, an’ Ten Rings trying to muscle in. Used to be allied with the Starks, but they’re gone. Shame.”

Tony couldn’t help but echo the sentiment. Maybe if he’d known the Winter Soldier was so utterly gorgeous, he’d have paid a little more attention when his father had been trying to teach him how to manage the turf.

Or maybe not. He’d been a callow brat right up until he’d been betrayed and delivered into the Ten Rings’ hands.

“Well, _I_ care,” he told Bucky. “For whatever good that does you.” He finished the shave and carefully scooped some water up onto Bucky’s cheeks to wash away the remnants of the shaving lather.

“I’ll take whatever validation I can get,” Bucky murmured. He shifted around, groping for a grip on the side of the tub, and seemed almost startled when Tony helped him stand. “You’re stronger than you look.” He swayed on his feet a moment, his whole body listing to one side. 

Tony steadied him. “Strong enough,” he agreed. Bucky didn’t weigh much more than an engine, and was capable of helping to move himself. Tony helped Bucky out of the tub, then grabbed a towel and started to dry Bucky off.

Bucky inhaled suddenly. Even as brisk and mostly impartial as Tony's touch had been, Bucky was still responding to it, and his eyes were wide with surprise, and then went heavy lidded as he noticed Tony looking up at him. “I could get used to you,” Bucky said, reaching out one bath-warm hand, fingertips soft and pruny from the water, and brushed a light touch over Tony’s cheek.

Tony tipped his face into the touch, rubbing against Bucky’s hand like a cat. “I think I might enjoy that.” He finished the task, warmly aware of the way Bucky watched him. He finished, set the towel aside. “Would you like your robe?”

“Do I need it?” Bucky wondered. “I usually sleep naked.” He swayed again, which might have been involuntary, except he seemed drawn as if by a magnet, until he was barely a breath away from Tony. “How do you sleep?”

Tony tipped his face up until he was almost, but not quite, kissing Bucky. “However you’d like me to,” he said, smirking just a little, making it into a tease.

“With me,” Bucky said, and he closed that gap, his mouth soft on Tony’s, smelling like soap and shaving cream, his skin warm and clean, pushing his whole body against Tony’s. His tongue slid over Tony’s lips, tempting them to open up, and then taking advantage and pushing inside. 

Tony groaned, slid his hands up Bucky’s chest, surrendering to that kiss, letting Bucky plunder his mouth. He leaned into the strong bulk of Bucky’s body as much as he dared, let the feel of it and the scent of Bucky’s skin wriggle into his belly, sinking lower like a hot stone, filling him with arousal. “Gladly,” he gasped when Bucky broke away. He captured Bucky’s hand and took a step back, pulling Bucky with him, out of the bathing room and back toward the bed.

Bucky waved the lights down as they passed the console, until the room was shrouded in shadow, comforting and safe. The bed was softer than it looked, the piles of blankets and pillows were plush and inviting. Bucky let Tony fall backward onto the platform, crawling with intent over him, and then he flinched, the movement stretching his arm around the wound.

Tony sat up and tugged Bucky down beside him. “You should rest,” he said. “Don’t strain it. Let me.” He nudged until Bucky was lying down, then set about tasting all that gorgeous skin, testing to see what sorts of responses he could get from a scrape of teeth or sucking up a mark or tracing designs with his tongue and then blowing cool air over them.

With obvious interest, Bucky leaned on his left elbow to watch, right hand sometimes going up to brush through Tony’s hair, or rub his thumb against Tony’s jaw and ear. “You’re sweet,” Bucky told him, and then stiffened and surged up against Tony when he nipped over Bucky’s ribs, a strangled noise coming out of his throat.

“And sometimes a little spicy,” Tony teased. The chip practically purred at Bucky’s reactions, cataloging them automatically. Still, it had been a long night and Bucky was both wounded and exhausted. Tony probably shouldn’t draw things out _too_ long. Time enough for that later, he hoped.

He made his way down Bucky’s stomach, licking and nipping to watch the muscles jump, practically purring every time Bucky’s breath caught or the hand in Tony’s hair tightened involuntarily. He glanced up at Bucky’s face, to make sure Bucky was still watching, and then licked a broad stripe up Bucky’s cock, flicking at the head.

Bucky swore -- or at least Tony assumed it was swearing, it sounded like swearing -- in a language that Tony didn’t recognize. His hand gripped Tony’s scalp, not pushing or directing, but holding on. He seemed captured, unable to look away, eyes dark, mouth slightly open as he breathed.

Tony met Bucky’s eyes and smiled, then opened his mouth and took Bucky in, as deep as he could-- Oh, the chip was suppressing his gag reflex, that was _great_. He pushed forward and down until Bucky’s cock hit the back of his throat and his lips were snug around the base, breathing in the musky scent, sweet and rich. He couldn’t help a little moan of pleasure.

“Oh, that--” Bucky said, then shuddered all over. “So good, oh--” He arched up, hips thrusting against Tony, hand going down to grip the blankets, as if trying to hold himself down. “Tony-- I--”

There was a spurt of precome and then Bucky cried out again, relief and pleasure mixed, and he came, graceless and easy.

Tony swallowed, then gently pulled off and swallowed again, licking the last of Bucky’s taste from his lips. He propped himself up on one hand and used the other to brush the hair back from Bucky’s face, tender and sweet. “Feel a little better?”

“I dunno that I’ve been this relaxed in my life, like ever,” Bucky said, laying back in the blankets to pant for breath. “You are th’ most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He tipped his head to one side and brushed a kiss against Tony’s palm. 

Tony smiled, curling his hand against Bucky’s jaw. “Maybe you should look in the mirror more.” He shifted around, curling up against Bucky’s un-injured side.

Bucky hummed, noncommittal, and moved his hand, until his hand was against Tony’s thigh, tracing little circles on his hip and leg. “Don’t know how much I can do for you,” he said, “but-- let me help you get there, yeah?” Those wandering fingers traced the very edge of Tony’s ridiculous drawers, tickling the sensitive skin there. 

Tony shivered a little. “I won’t say no,” he said, a little breathless, heat flooding through him. “Shouldn’t-- _oh!_ \--won’t take much.” He wriggled out of the little scrap of clothing, letting the silk and the chains fall to the floor unheeded.

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, his mouth twitching up at the corners, seemingly delighted by Tony’s enthusiasm. His hand moved back to Tony’s cock, a light tease, brushing his fingers up and down the length. Bucky glanced down at it, and then seemed fascinated by watching as Tony wriggled and pushed against him. His palm was striped with calluses, softened by the water, but still rough enough to provide delicious friction. And when Tony made a soft, needy sound, Bucky surged up, kissed the sound right out of Tony’s mouth.

“Oh, oh, god, yes,” Tony gasped, helplessly rutting into Bucky’s hand, chasing a rhythm that would resonate, would tip him over the edge. He clung to Bucky’s shoulder, kissing Bucky with desperate, open-mouthed kisses, half begging and half cursing into the heated air between them. Either his celibate months among the Ten Rings or the companion chip were driving him toward climax faster than he could remember ever going, until it seemed like the heat of it was radiating from every pore.

“That’s good, like that, oh, you look gorgeous,” Bucky murmured. “I can’t wait t’ be able to make you mine. Yeah, you give it to me, Tony.”

Then Bucky twisted his wrist _just_ so and Tony arched into it like he’d been electrified, his spine curling and his head snapping back with a shout as he came, surge after surge of it washing through his body until he was left utterly limp, shaking from the sheer force of it and gasping for breath. “Bucky, _god_.”

Bucky huffed out a breath, brushed a barely there kiss across Tony’s mouth. “That good for you, honey?” He prodded around in his blanket nest for a soft, absorbent sheet and mopped up the mess a little carelessly before throwing the soiled blanket off the platform.

“Mm,” Tony agreed, still just a bit dazed. “Amazing. Perfect.” He reached up and tugged Bucky back down beside him. “Rest now,” he insisted sleepily.

“Bossy,” Bucky teased. He snuggled up against Tony, tucking his nose in the crook of Tony’s throat, and pulled one of the blankets up and over them. A few minutes later and the lights dimmed the rest of the way, leaving them in darkness. Bucky wiggled a few times, getting comfortable, and then was breathing soft and steady against Tony’s skin.

Tony stroked Bucky’s hair and shoulder lightly, whatever he could reach easily, drowsing in the afterglow of endorphins. He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep much, really, but no matter how many bio-enhancements Bucky had, healing took energy, so Tony would do what he could to help Bucky rest.

He matched his breathing to Bucky’s, tracing slow, idle designs across Bucky’s back, and between one breath and the next, fell asleep.

* * *

In hindsight, Bucky should have known better.

It was utterly out of character for nearly everyone that Bucky knew, to just… leave things alone. Which meant that it was barely after sunrise when Sam rapped on the door and then came in without waiting for a welcome.

“We got an envoy--” Sam started, then stopped, hand going first over his mouth, and then the other coming up to cover his own eyes. “Are you _naked_? I can’t unsee that, man.”

Scott pushed through the door, nearly knocking Sam over, as if eager to see the display of skin-- not that there really was much. Tony’s legs, which were slowly retracting under the blanket, and Bucky’s shoulders and chest which everyone had seen before. 

Okay, so maybe Tony’s ass had been sticking out just before Sam barged in, but really, that was his own fault.

“Envoy,” Bucky repeated, trying to focus on the only important thing that had been said, thus far.

Next to him, Tony stirred and stretched and then pushed the blanket off his face. “Mmwha? What’s the--” He spotted Sam and Scott and went still. “Oh.”

“Right,” Sam said, and while he put his hands down at his sides, his gaze was firm-fixed on the wall over Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky rolled his eyes. Sam was a drama queen, sometimes. “So. Apparently after spending way more of our funds than you should have to purchase yourself a personal floozy--” Sam gestured to Tony as if somehow this was Tony’s fault, and Bucky shifted a little, rubbing his thumb against Tony’s hand in reassurance. None of this was Tony’s fault at all. 

“Companion,” Bucky said, firmly. “It’s a proper, respected trade, Wilson.”

“Right,” Sam drawled. “Sure. _Anyway_ … Stane sent an envoy, to discuss the possibility of turf war. We made a little rumble last night, and he just wants to be first in line to sell everybody guns. Probably.”

Tony’s hand twitched under Bucky’s, just a little, at the mention of Stane. “Don’t buy from Stane,” he murmured. “He’s in bed with Ten Rings.”

Bucky scowled. “That’s inconvenient,” he said. “Puttin’ enemies on all sides now, we’re bound to get wiped out. You sure?” 

Tony nodded. “He’s part of the reason I wound up where I did.” He shifted and tugged at the blanket a little, then sat up. “Who’s the envoy?” he asked Sam.

Sam focused even harder on the wall, but Scott’s eyes went wide and he stared at Tony without a hint of shame.

“Didn’t give a name,” Sam said, eyebrow going up. _You’re letting your bed mate get into your politics_ , that look seemed to say. "Blond guy, good looking, blue eyes. Holds himself like he thinks he’s better than. Well armoured. Claims to speak for Stane. We put him in the north tower for the time being. It’s well guarded--”

“You’re Tony _Stark_ ,” Scott blurted. “The missing Stark heir!”

Tony flinched and put his hand over his face. “Damn it.”

Scott turned to Sam excitedly. “Tony Stark!” he repeated. “Forget the treasury overrun, _whatever_ Bucky paid is worth it!”

“Tony?” Bucky said, looping metal fingers around Tony’s wrist to tug his hand down. “Is that true?” He had an unpleasant, sinking feeling in his gut. It took him a moment to recognize what is was, a mix of disappointment and shame. If Tony really was a Stark, then-- well then he wasn’t a Companion.

Tony sighed. “Yes,” he admitted. “I’m not really _missing_ , though. If the envoy is who I suspect it is, Stane knows _exactly_ where I am.”

“You’re really Stark,” Sam said, like he didn’t believe it. “The Stark kid’s supposed to be six flavors of genius, and this--” He waved a hand around at Bucky and Tony. “--ain’t exactly a smart plan.”

“Who was going to look for a genius at the Companion mart?” Bucky wondered, absently.

“I didn’t exactly have a lot of time to work out the details,” Tony added. “I hadn’t counted on Raza and his runners surviving my escape, and I had to move fast. I was hoping -- no one looks at a companion’s _face_.” He shot Scott a look. “Usually.”

“It wasn’t just your face I was looking at,” Scott said, with no shame whatsoever. But that was Scott, really.

Bucky groaned, rubbing at his temples. This was trouble; this was _so much_ trouble. “Right, okay, here’s what we’re going to do for right now. You’re going to go delay the envoy. Tell him, I don’t know, I got shot last night and I’m having a relapse. And while you’re doing that, Tony and I are going to get dressed, and eat something, and meet up in the war room after. We don’t need hostiles on all sides, not if we want to live through the winter.” 

Tony rubbed at his face. “Ten Rings wants me alive and in chains,” he said. “Stane just wants me dead. If we could figure out a way to fake that convincingly...”

Scott made a stifled sound, like a little kid remembering suddenly that he was in a library and shouldn’t shout. “You’re Tony Stark,” he said, again. “No, no, I mean-- he’s _Tony Stark_. Come on, come on, put pants on, come ON, I need you--”

Bucky’s hand shot out and grabbed Tony’s bicep, without even a single thought from his brain getting in the way. _No, Tony’s mine._

“Oh, knock it off, Bucky,” Scott said, still cheerful. “I don’t want to fuck him, I want to give him a socket wrench. Look, he can-- you can, can’t you, it’s not all chip work, right? I have a broken photostatic veil, can you _fix that_?”

Tony huffed. “You... have a photostatic veil. Just lying around. Okay. I mean, I can’t make any promises, because I don’t know what’s wrong with it and I don’t know if you’ve got the right tools, but I can definitely have a look, that’s well within my subchip capabilities.” He paused. “If Bucky doesn’t mind.” He cocked his head at Bucky with a faint, knowing smile.

“Hydra,” Bucky said shortly. “They sent an assassin, a few months back. Scott was all bent out of shape for weeks that I hit that bitch in the head and damaged the veil. All right, peep show’s over. Go outside, close the door and we’ll-- work on this in a few minutes.”

Sam gave Bucky another Look. “A few minutes, right.”

But they did in fact leave and they did in fact close the door, which left Bucky with an entirely new problem. He did not, in fact, have clothes that would fit Tony.

“Uh,” Bucky said, because he was smart that way. 

“I’m sorry,” Tony said. “I was going to tell you, eventually, I just...” He spread his hands, a graceful gesture.

“No, no, it’s-- you didn’t have any reason to trust me,” Bucky said. He rolled out of bed, getting his feet under him, and headed toward his closet without looking back at Tony, pulling on clothes, and then-- “These might do, just for right now.” They were drawstring pants, thin cotton. Bucky sometimes used them to sleep in, if they were on the road. The cuffs would roll up so Tony wouldn’t trip over them. “I guess we’ll--” 

He took a deep breath, and then handed the pants over to Tony. “What-- before I start making assumptions, maybe I better ask. Do you _want_ to go back to Stane’s turf with this emissary? Is there somewhere else you call home?” 

Tony slid off the bed platform, entirely unselfconscious of his nudity. He took the pants and started pulling them on. “No,” he said. “Stane wants me dead so I can’t challenge him for the turf. Wouldn’t ever believe that I don’t _want_ to be Boss.” The pants were too big for Tony, bagging around his ankles, and as soon as he let go, the waist dropped until they were nearly indecent, the sharp jut of his hipbones showing clearly over the waistband. “He set me up and had me sent to Ten Rings as a prisoner. They were supposed to kill me, but decided I was worth more alive.” He shot Bucky a rueful smile. “You’re pretty much all I’ve got.”

“You’re _definitely_ worth more alive,” Bucky said. He didn’t mean that to come out quite as lascivious as it sounded, but, well, Tony was a very good looking man. “An’ despite what some people say, I ain’t inclined to give you over to someone, knowing you’ll be murdered, even if it means we’re going to go to war to protect you. That’s no way to lead good people, and I don’t plan on doing it. So, if you want to stay, you can stay, and you’re one of us.”

Tony hesitated. “Some of your people might not like that very much.”

“Which is why you’re going to -- here -- put this shirt on, and go with Scott. Fix the veil. If we can get Stane off our backs for a while, you can prove your worth. Not that you should have to,” Bucky said. “You’re a human being. We don’t trade lives. If we give you up now, to save our own skins, it won’t stop. And we’ve given in to evil, at the same time. No. I won’t do it.”

Tony took the shirt and pulled it on. He reached up and cupped his hand around Bucky’s jaw, leaned in to kiss Bucky’s lips very gently. “You’re a good man,” he said. “I’ll do what I can to keep you and yours out of the line of fire.”

Bucky closed his eyes, trying not to sway into the kiss. He caught Tony’s wrist, and ran his thumb over the delicate bones there. He tried-- he _meant_ to say that Tony didn’t have to, that-- he didn’t even know what he was going to say. Something. About Tony being his own person and not belonging to Bucky, but-- in the end, he didn’t say anything at all. “Go on, then, Scott’ll show you to the workshop. I gotta hammer out some plans with Sam before we go do something about this envoy.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll see you later,” he promised. He rocked on the balls of his feet a little, like he was thinking about kissing Bucky again, and then stepped back. He gently tugged his hand free of Bucky’s grip and reached behind his head to pull the companion chip out of his dataport. Another one of those slightly rueful smiles, and he tucked the chip into the pants pocket before turning toward the door.

Bucky watched him go, drinking in every bit of that lithe, sensual form. Even without the chip, Tony moved like a man who prided himself on giving pleasure. 

_It’s not the same_ , a tiny voice in Bucky’s head protested, but Bucky didn’t have any answers as to _why_.

Didn’t matter. As he’d told himself a dozen times or more, the situation was what it was. The question now was, what were they going to do now?

He waited until Scott and Tony were gone, before he finished dressing and went to confer with his second on how to best defend their turf.


	5. Chapter 5

Scott chattered excitedly the whole time he was leading Tony through the labyrinthine halls of the Commandos’ keep. Tony listened with only half an ear, still just a little dazed from being chipless, and trying not to think about how he’d wanted to kiss Bucky again just as much after he’d taken out the companion chip as he had while it was still slotted.

The workshop that Scott led him to was much like any other. A little on the chilly side because of the aircon on the workstations; tables and benches, racks and cabinets and drawers full of parts and tools. It took Tony a couple of minutes to get oriented, and then he let Scott show him to an empty workstation and produce the broken veil.

Scott knew his stuff, that was plain from the way he described the ways he’d already tried to fix it. Tony wondered idly whether that was native knowledge or if Scott was pulling on an engineering chip’s database. Not that it mattered much.

Tony nodded along, listening even as he grabbed the microtool box and started to take apart the anchor dot that held most of the microcircuitry.

“I mean, you want me to rewire your house, that’s great,” Scott said. “And I’m good with security systems, both breakdowns and setups. And whatever Sam says, a circuit is not a circuit. That’s like saying you can do open heart surgery when what you have a chip for is first aid. Not advisable.”

“Yeah, I hear that,” Tony agreed. Yep, several of the miniaturized transistors had been smashed. An easy enough fix, provided they had replacements. “Transistors?” He reached for the bin that Scott pointed him to and started sorting through the options. “Tell me about Bucky,” he said. It seemed Scott was going to talk no matter what; might as well steer the flood in a more interesting direction.

“Well, there’s no such thing, really, as neutral turf,” Scott said. “But that’s kinda what we’re going for, here. Someplace safe, where the Boss does his job -- protecting the streeters -- and not squeezing 'em for everything they got. That’s the dream, right?”

Scott was pulling some broken bits and pieces from other bins, sorting through whatever loot they’d picked up in last night’s dust up, as well as sorting out the new merchandise, legitimately obtained.

“So, you know, Bucky, he used to be Hydra’s enforcer,” Scott said. “And this used to be Hydra streets, too. But something happened. They say, I dunno, I wasn’t there when it happened. Everyone says he used to have a high-end cranial leash installed. Hydra’s way of keeping their top guys loyal. Too much deviance from mission norms and _Booom_! No more Bucky, right?”

Tony shuddered. Cranial leashes were ugly products. They’d been banned from Stark turf for ages. Well, _had_ been. Tony had no idea if Stane had reinstated them.

“And yeah, what I heard is Hydra sent him after some kid, to teach his parents a lesson, or whatever,” Scott went on. “And then, story goes, this guy, some guy, either looks like someone Bucky used to know, or maybe he _was_ someone Bucky used to know, jumps out and shields the kid with his own body, like that’s going to do any good against the Winter Soldier, just a two-for-one murder deal, right?” Scott dropped a handful of chips on the table, and started peering at them through a ‘scope. 

“Yeah? What happened?”

“But Bucky didn’t pull the trigger, he just stood there, eyes all wide and his hair all in his face, and just _stands there_. The guy, he gets the kid out of there, and then tries to talk to Bucky, talk him down or something, and Bucky just ran off, left the mission unfinished, but he went back to Hydra, so--”

“Huh.” Tony didn’t really want to imagine what Bucky’s Hydra higher-ups had to say about _that_. He wondered how much of the story was true, and how much had grown in the telling.

“Anyway, not long after that, the Winter Soldier broke his leash, went completely off the rails,” Scott said. “Killed a hell of a lot of Hydra guys and carved out this section of the streets, right here, and claimed it as his own.”

“How’d he break the leash?” Tony wondered, slipping a new transistor into place. “They’re supposed to be tamper-proof.”

“Lots of rumors there,” Scott said. “No one knows for sure. Some say he was lovers with one of the Black Widows and she removed it for him. Some say it was that guy, the one that saved the kid, that he has some sort of distorter kit that fragged it. Some people say Bucky’s not the Winter Soldier at all, he’s just playing up to a legend that went rogue and that Hydra put down. The world may never know,” Scott said that last in a fake, telling ghost stories around the campfire voice.

Tony snorted. “Yeah, okay.” He pulled out another of the broken transistors. “What’s he like as a Boss?”

“Fair,” Scott said. “More than fair, really. You know, he took these streets in blood, and people kinda expected him to just… be like that. But he wasn’t. He ran out the chipdips and all the pimps and slavers, set everyone up, and made sure everyone had a home and food, and then-- he just runs the territory. Most of the time, he barely takes his cut. In fact, you’re the first swell item he’s bought for himself at all.” 

“Huh.” Tony didn’t know what to think about that. It was like some kind of Good Boss from a fairy tale. “How long have you been in this turf? Where’d you come from?”

“Two years, now,” Scott said. “Me an’ a bunch of others, we were part of the Raft-- well, you heard about the Raft break out, right? Get busted in your own turf, minding your own business, just maybe running a side job of chipping, nothing for the Boss to get in a twist about, and next thing you know, you’ve got a collar around your neck to keep your chips in place, and you’re slave labor in the most hellish prison on the planet. Bucky shows up, group of pros, and he knows exactly where he’s going. Frees the people who’ll be useful to him first, but he didn’t leave anyone in there. Everyone was either a guard and dead, or they came out. Some people chose to go home, and he didn’t stop ‘em. But most of us went with him. Been rebuilding a life, here.” 

That was even more interesting. Tony _had_ heard about the Raft breakout -- who hadn’t? -- but he’d never heard anything more substantial than rumor about who’d orchestrated it. “Who’d he go in there for?” No one just woke up one day and decided they were going to raid the Raft.

“Don’t know,” Scott said. “Whoever it was, he wasn’t in the Raft anymore. Made a deal with Pierce, we heard, and had gotten out just before the whole thing went down. Not sure if Bucky was there to free the guy, or kill him, but he was pissed as hell that he hadn’t gotten to do either.”

Tony considered that, and decided it was probably in his best interest not to ask any more questions. Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep poking into it. Tony never had known when to leave anything well enough alone. He finished connecting the broken transistor and then re-connected the filament wires. “Okay, let’s see if that did the trick.” He pressed the anchor dots to his forehead, up against his hairline, and turned to face Scott. “Who am I?” 

“Melinda May,” Scott said, shoulders straightening just a little. “You should probably take that off before someone sees her. Good job, though. That’ll do the trick. We can hack the neural relays and get it set up to-- well, one, to look like you and two, make you up to look deceased. And then we can put the mask on. Eeeeeh, I don’t know, maybe we’ve still got the body around here from one of those Ten Rings guys from last night. Yuck.”

“No morgue? Any recently dead body would probably work,” Tony suggested.

“Well, yes,” Scott said, “but really, it’s kinda harsh to ask someone to donate their dad’s body to the guys who may or may not want to stab the corpse a few times or something. Mutilating the dead is a standard asshole technique, and I’m getting the feeling that your old pal from Stanesville might not be the most friendly guy ever.”

Tony tipped his head and hummed acknowledgement. “I’ve been stuck with the Ten Rings too long,” he muttered. “Okay, let’s get this thing to download my print and neural patterns, and we’ll find out how quickly we can grab a body no one cares about.”

“Sounds awful, don’t tell me about it, I’ll just cry like a big baby,” Scott said. “Come on, I’ve got a whole download suite through here.” He grabbed something off a shelf and then opened a white tube that resembled a coffin or a tanning station. “Lay down and think of the Queen. Or something. Close your eyes. And I’ll do a full scan.”

“I feel obliged to remind you that I’m very expensive and difficult to repair,” Tony said, climbing into the scanner. He wiggled around until he felt his body settling into the slight contours, and looked up at the blank white lid.

“Bucky paid five grand for you,” Scott said, closing the lid. “Which is only about ten percent of what you’re worth. If I break you, I’m just gonna leave the turf. So fast you can see my vapor trail.”

The scanner rumbled to life, flooding the chamber with light and the slight buzzing sensation of being traced all over by hard light contouring.

“I guess we’ll see if I can prove my worth,” Tony said. “Left all my best chips with the Ten Rings.” And while Bucky had seemed plenty pleased with Tony’s performance the night before, Tony very much doubted he was worth five thousand cred as a companion.

“Everyone says you’re a natural talent,” Scott said, his voice slightly muffled as the scans ran. “Not just a chip puncher, but someone who can invent and innovate. That’s more’n any chip’s worth. It’ll be fine.” Scott was whistling and singing under his breath as the lights inside the scanner changed from white to blue to yellow, like fiery patterns against Tony’s eyelids. “And here you are, all digitized. Hop on out -- what do you want to do to yourself? Blown up by a road bomb, just shot, or maybe stabbed a few dozen times?” Scott seemed disconcertedly gleeful about the prospect, entering commands to change the base-image scan.

Tony snorted. “Let’s avoid blowing me up. If they can’t positively identify the body, they’ll want to take it for DNA matching.” He tried to remember the skirmish, but it had all happened so fast... “Shot, I think. I didn’t see a lot of hand-to-hand grappling.”

“Oh, here,” Scott said, and he added a neat entry wound just under the collarbone. “You caught a bullet for Bucky. That was a churn round, wasn’t it, so, just flip you over-- nasty bruising, not that anyone ever lives long enough for that; but-- yeah, there we go, all the distended skin from your internal organs and bones getting hit, high impact. Make you a little corpsified. And they can even give your pal the slug that killed you, since Sammie dug it out of Bucky’s shoulder. Which gives Bucky an excuse to want to hold onto your body, if you died for him, right?”

“That, and he paid good money for me,” Tony agreed, “so if he’s not getting what he paid for, I might as well feed the hydroponics, or... whatever you do with bodies in your turf.”

“All right, here you go, one programmed photostat veil,” Scott said. “Oh, no, wait, you should probably not be wandering around town to give it to Bucky. Duh, I swear, if my head wasn’t attached, I’d lose it. You stay here. Why don’t you check over these skillchips I picked up yesterday, make sure no one planted anything nasty in there, and I’ll run this out to Bucky, okay? Okay.”

“You got it,” Tony said. He took over the stool Scott had been sitting on before, pulling the box of chips closer.

One of the chips had a sniffer installed, probably meant to make the user access their accounts and transmit the data, all without ever knowing they’d done it. There was a counter hack, Tony recalled, that could be installed over the sniffer, tracking it back to its origin point and reversing the dataflow.

He tried to make a note, out of sheer habit, but wound up with the faint headache that meant he’d tried to access an empty dataport. Damn it. He needed to get his chips back. Or rebuild them. He sighed and reached for a piece of paper and a pen, jotting down the chip, its compromise, and the hackfix. He’d do a scan of everything, and then if no one had come for him yet, he’d start the mods.

And if the negotiations went poorly and the Commandos were forced to give him up, well, at least Scott or some other engineer would know where to start.

***

Bucky disliked the envoy -- Tiberius Stone, he called himself -- pretty much on first sight. There was something about him that set Bucky’s teeth on edge.

And it wasn’t, Bucky told himself, the fact that the man had a faint resemblance to Steve Rogers, who Bucky hadn’t seen in almost seventy years now. That was irrelevant to the matter at hand, and the matter at hand was pretty simple.

Stone folded long-fingered hands that looked like they’d never done a day’s honest labor and said, “It’s very simple. We have reason to believe that the companion you acquired yesterday is one of ours, kidnapped and then pressed into service. We’d like to bring him home.”

“I’m afraid that’s really not going to be possible,” Bucky said. He pressed his hand against his injury, still healing and complaining about it. “My companion didn’t survive the trip home. Ten Rings decided they didn’t care for a fair auction and objected-- with heavy fire. Much as I regret it, probably nothing more than chip conditioning. He jumped in front of me. Saved my life, I only caught some shrapnel, but he-- it was a churn round. We don’t have a qualified medic right now. There was nothing we could do.” 

Bucky didn’t try to look sad, it wasn’t what someone like Stone would want to see. More like angry that his eggs got broken before he made an omelette. 

Stone barely blinked at this news. “Given the circumstances of your departure, that was a possibility that my leader had anticipated. In which case, I am instructed to require proof, and the return of any possessions which he brought with him into your keeping.”

“There were some street clothes, along with his jewelry. Did you know him? We’re planning a burial for him tomorrow. You can pay your respects. He died for me. Because of me. I’d… like to put him to rest, here, on Commando turf,” Bucky said. They’d gotten Tony’s things together, and Scott had even rigged out a sample of hair and blood they could use from the “body” to give Stone as evidence. Chances were good, it still wouldn’t fool them for long, but it was a good, strong start. 

Plausible deniability. Long enough to settle matters with Ten Rings. No one wanted to fight a war on two fronts, no matter how good Bucky’s troops were.

Stone waved a careless hand. “Well enough,” he said cooly. “We were lovers for a time. I won’t be able to stay overnight. If you’ll have his things fetched and take me to see the body, please, I’ll be on my way.”

“Of course,” Bucky said, signaling Clint to go fetch the parcels. They’d make it up to Tony, later. Right now, keeping the peace was essential. “I hope you’ll remember to pass along my condolences to Mr. Stane, for the loss of your man. He seemed. Sweet.”

Stone actually sputtered something resembling a laugh. “Sweet? _Tony?_ Maybe we got a miscommunication after all.”

“Maybe it was the chip,” Bucky said with a shrug. “We’re keeping that. Got a few pretty faces in town that could use a better income.” He led Stone to their tiny chapel with its tinier morgue facilities underneath. It was cold enough to see his breath down there, and even if it was part of the routine to seem somber, Bucky would have been, anyway.

He didn’t like the cold. Too many memories.

Tony was stretched out, striped bare, with a white sheet tucked neatly around his hips. The wound was painful-looking, livid against his skin.

Bucky sucked a breath, his emotions whipping back and forth. He wanted to smack Stone through a wall, he wanted to rage against whatever had been done to Tony to make this seem like a good option. And he wanted to laugh with relief, knowing this was not Tony at all.

It probably lent credence to his story as he struggled to mask his turmoil.

Stone walked around the morgue table, considering the body impassively. He leaned over to examine the entry hole, then tipped the body up to examine the back, the characteristic blister bruise that churn rounds left. He certainly didn’t seem any sort of upset to see his ex-lover laid out like this, senselessly dead. He hummed a little to himself, lifted the sheet to check the feet and calves.

“Dead,” he agreed, finally. “Mr. Stane will be sad, I’m sure.”

Bucky tugged the sheet up to cover the corpse’s face. The air was freezing and smelled like antiseptic and blood. He led Stone out of the chapel, and met with Clint out front. “These are his things.” He shoved the bundle of clothes, thin golden chains, and a blood-stained length of silk at Stone, relishing the way the man cringed at the last item. Probably only because it was gore, and not necessarily the last evidence of a dying man.

Stone pushed the bloodstained silk out of the way and rifled through the rest. “He didn’t have any other chips?”

“No,” Bucky said, shortly. “He had a crappy chip port install, too. Looked like someone did it with needle nose pliers and scotch tape. It was infected.”

Bucky let himself lean on Clint, and then pushed himself up again. “I should get back to medical,” Bucky said. “Wasn’t exactly not-injured myself. But Stane’s good opinion means everything to us. Sam’ll escort you to the end of our turf, and we have some gifts, just little things, for Mr. Stane.”

Bucky didn’t do servility particularly well, but Stane was one of those Bosses who said he liked to feel appreciated and meant that he wanted all the niceties and bribes. Bucky didn’t go for that sort of gifting himself, what was just surplus taxation. People just wanted to live their lives, and Bucky wanted to let them. But he knew all the correct motions to make. Some wine, a few cigars, and a crate of fresh picked strawberries. They’d make Stane feel like the Commandos were afraid of him, and that was right where he wanted them.

Funny, the things you could do to people when they thought you were downtrodden.

Bucky amused himself for a moment by imagining a few of them.

Stone collected Tony’s meager possessions. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that,” he said. “He had to pull me off an important task to come investigate this.” Angling, obviously, for his own share of the bribes.

“We appreciate your concern in this matter, Mr. Stone, of course we do,” Bucky said. “Why don’t you stop by the hostel before you leave, have Miss Carter put you together a lunch.” The lunch, of course, would include a few handfuls of cred chits. 

No wonder everyone was poor, Bucky sighed. Paying out bribes all the time was exhausting. Most of the grifting in Commando’s turf was gone. Everyone worked at what they could, everyone had homes and shelter and safety and food.

Why some people always wanted more -- and not so much more, but specifically _more than you_ \-- Bucky would never understand.

But it did the trick. Stone smiled thinly. “Thank you, Mr. Barnes. I’ll be on my way, then. My condolences on the loss of your... investment.” His lip curled as he said it, a sneering, superior smirk.

He waited until Stone was out of sight to sag with relief. They’d pulled it off. He turned on his heel and headed back toward the Keep. He probably really ought to lay down for a while. His nanites were good, but they did take a lot of energy to keep going, and he was exhausted. Also, he had a niggling urge to check in on Tony.

Tony-- ug. Another issue. Now that he wasn’t -- exactly -- Bucky’s companion. Well, they’d have to make some sort of arrangements for him. Find a room that was habitable or something. Maybe there weren’t any spares; there were a few buildings down the street that were mostly empty, but they were far from weather tight at the moment. Maybe Tony would--

\--want to stay.

Bucky rolled his eyes at himself.

He checked his chrono. It was well past lunch, but not quite dinner yet. Well, he could scrounge around for something to eat, and then check on Tony.

Or even bring Tony a lunch; chances were good no one had thought to do so, and Tony hadn’t had enough time or freedom to be able to explore. No one had given him a tour, or explained how the Keep schedules ran.

Sure. Lunch. He could do that.

And then, he’d get some rest.


	6. Chapter 6

“So, congratulations, you’re dead,” Bucky said, walking into Scott’s workshop. “I brought you something to eat to celebrate. Scott says you ain’t left since he brought you down here.” The smells coming from the food -- it looked like some plastic packaging that had been impromptu converted over to a tray -- were mouthwatering. Roasted meats, fresh bread, and an apple. “Come on, take a break.”

“Oh, that smells fantastic,” Tony said. He finished up the line he was on and then shut down the chip tools. “Did he buy it, really? Did he take the samples?”

“He took all your personal effects,” Bucky said, “an’ said Stane would be sad about your death. I think he believed it, or wants to. He was asking about chips, if you had any others, aside from the one in your head when I bought you.”

“Yeah, I just bet he was,” Tony said, snorting out a laugh. “When I left, I was carrying my personal chips, six or seven of them, all handbuilt. No schematics. Ten Rings took them from me, of course.”

“I let him think I was going to pass your companion chip off to an up-and-coming pretty face,” Bucky said. “Didn’t want him poking at it, some of those can be convinced to cough up memory. Your companion chip would have taken note of -- technique that worked on me, so you could do your job better. Which leaves it open to exploitation if he wanted to see if we were telling the truth or not.”

Tony nodded. “I’m not inclined to let them have anything of mine.” He reached for the apple, bit into it with relish. “Oh, that’s good. Ten Rings doesn’t give fresh produce to prisoners.” He swallowed his mouthful and then shot Bucky a grin. “Thanks.”

“I wish we didn’t have to give up your things,” Bucky said. “I mean, clothes and whatnot, but it was all you had. When Stone is out far enough to not decide to turn ‘round and come back, I can take you down to the GenShop, see if there’s anything that’ll fit you.”

“Hm, yeah, I guess you’re going to want your pants back at some point.” Tony looked down and tugged them up again to keep them from slipping entirely off his hips. “No rush, though. They’re comfy.”

“They look good on you,” Bucky said, with a leer that Tony wasn’t entirely sure was intentional. “I mean, I-- you should have things that are yours. Clothes, your chips, you know. Your _stuff_. It’s what makes us… have a home, I guess.”

Tony wasn’t sure about that. He’d had a lot of stuff, back on Stark turf, but it had never really felt like home. “I’m easy,” he said. “I mean, I might kill for a chance to raid Ten Rings and take my chips back, but other than that...” He shrugged. “This is already more home-y than I’ve felt in months.”

“Glad to know we rate higher than Ten Rings, at least,” Bucky said. He leaned one hip against a nearby workstation. “Which brings us to another issue, which is what to do with you now.”

“ _What on earth do we do with Tony?_ ” Tony said, mimicking one of his childhood tutors. “It’s been a problem for the ages.” He put down his fork and leaned back to look up at Bucky. “What are the options?”

“Generally speaking, pretty open,” Bucky said. “I mean. Everybody works, to whatever their ability is. We run an apprentice system here, for the kids, as well as some schooling for those who prefer book learning. If you’re inclined to teach. There’s rooftop greenhouses, that’s where we get most of our food from, and they always need tending. I’m wondering what you want to do with yourself.”

Tony stared at Bucky for a minute. “What I... want to do,” he repeated. Not what he had an aptitude for. Not what he’d be most productive at, or what would make the most cred for the turf. “Uh.” He looked around at the workshop where he’d been holed up for most of the day and waved a hand. “This is good, I can do this. I mean--” He quirked a lopsided grin. “--it would be a shame to waste all this brainpower on a companion’s chip, right?”

“Chip engineering is good,” Bucky said, and his mouth… did something that wasn’t a smile, but was giving it an attempt. “Yeah, I mean… the companion, that was just a-- a mask, a way to hide. Pretty clever, really. So yeah. I’m sure Scott would be happy to have someone else here, he’s happier rewiring the building and setting up the datastreams anyway.”

“Not clever enough,” Tony pointed out, “since several people saw right through it.” He sighed a little, poking at a bit of potato on his plate. “Too bad, really. It was kind of fun.”

“Pretty sure Wanda would be happy to have you at the Scarlet Witch, if you wanted to keep it as a side hustle,” Bucky said. “But you know, whatever appeals. I don’t aim to make you do anythin’ you don’t want to. We’ll get you set up.”

_It only appealed because it was you,_ Tony wanted to say. “I haven’t,” he said instead. “Since I broke out of Ten Rings turf, I haven’t done anything I didn’t want to do.”

Bucky gave a small, uncertain sort of smile. “Glad to hear it,” he said. “An’ if I haven’t said it, good work on the veil. That probably saved all our asses. I ain’t in the habit of bending to fear tactics, but if Stane and Ten Rings come at us at once? We just really don’t have the tech to defend ourselves.”

Now that was something Tony could help with. He grinned wide. “Well, we’ll just have to fix that, then.” 

“ _We_ sounds good,” Bucky said. “So, here’s a plan-- why don’t I get Scott and Sam to take you around? Scott knows how most of the electrical stuff works, and Sam’s my key defense guy. They’ll show you what’s what, and then we can brainstorm what improvements we can make, and if we have the materials on hand? I have some other administrative shit to do today, otherwise I’d do it myself.” 

Well, it had been too much to hope for that Bucky would elect to spend more time with Tony, now that he knew who Tony was. Tony got a grip on his wandering thoughts and nodded. “Sounds good,” he agreed. Maybe if he proved himself... It always came back to that, didn’t it? Tony managed a smile. “Just show me where to start, boss.”

“Believe me, I’d rather spend the day outside. I’ve got meetings with the sub-bosses of agriculture, and finance today, after the Market fiasco. Peggy’s going to bounce my head right off the table, I swear to you, that is what’s going to happen.”

Tony couldn’t imagine any of Obie’s sub-bosses taking him to task. Nor Howard’s, either. “Guess you’ll have to get someone to kiss it better,” he said without thinking, then winced inwardly. He should probably try to turn down the automatic flirting.

“There’s a plan,” Bucky said. “All right, unless you need anything else, I’ll get out of your hair, and let Sam know where to find you. I’ll see you soon.” Bucky squeezed Tony’s shoulder, and then was already tapping his ear. “I am, in fact, on the way right now, Peggy Carter, you don’t have to shriek at me.”

Tony leaned against the table and watched Bucky leave, bemused. The man was a bundle of contradictions, a conundrum wrapped in a mystery. He shook his head and turned back to the little pile of chips. Some of them might actually be worth something, if Tony made a few minor upgrades.

He didn’t quite get all the way into an engineering fugue, but it was nice to be able to tinker with no deadline and no expectations, and certainly without Ten Rings yelling or threatening bodily harm -- Tony cut that thought right off. That one needed to just pack its bags and go away, not thinking about that. It might have been an hour, or maybe two, but Scott showed up with a pair of boots tucked under one arm, a belt, and a pair of goggles. “It’s windy up near the force shield’s power source, you’ll want these. Boss says me an’ Sam are supposed to show you around, get your input on possible upgrades.”

Tony nodded and reached for the gear. “Gotta pay my bill somehow,” he said philosophically. He tugged on the boots and stamped to settle them, checking the fit. They were a little loose, but not so much he wouldn’t be able to walk. Better loose than tight, anyway. He slung the belt around his hips and hung a tool satchel from it, then tucked the goggles on top of his head, ready to pull them down when conditions warranted.

“Sam meeting us up there?” he wondered

“Sam is getting his flirt on, but he’ll catch up soon enough,” Scott said, rolling his eyes, then, “--maybe you should not mention that, he’s tetchy about it.”

Tony smirked. “I won’t tell him you told me if you tell me who it is.” Not that he knew many of the Commandos, yet, but if he managed to stay here for a while, he would. It was useful, knowing the relationships that strung between people.

“Her name’s Wanda,” Scott said. “She runs the Scarlet Witch. Sam’s sweet on her, and likes to pretend he’s not. I can’t decide if it’s an ego thing, or it’s just Sam-is-a-dumbass thing.”

“I mean, no reason it can’t be both,” Tony pointed out, following Scott out of the workshop and through the halls. “She like him?”

“Not sure,” Scott said. “She’s the Company boss. She mostly likes everyone, so long as they don’t cause trouble, or hit the companions. Not that we’ve had any of those in a while. Bucky ran the last few out. Doesn’t stand violence against people who can’t fight back.”

“An unusual boss,” Tony observed. He stopped to peer over the edge of a stair railing, eyeballing distances and considering how difficult it would be to install useable wiring. “Some might even say sentimental. No one’s challenged him for being so soft?”

“Sure,” Scott said, easily. “The thing with Bucky, though? If you’re gonna try to put him down, you need to make sure he stays there. Isn’t anybody managed to kill him yet, and not for lack of trying. He’s tough, and he hits _really hard_.”

Scott was nimble, and full of energy; he talked, even when he probably shouldn’t, like when his mouth was otherwise occupied holding a screwdriver, as he took off a panel.

Tony was used to working alone, more or less, which made Scott’s chattering a little distracting, but he still leaned over to consider the panel’s interior. Everything was surprisingly neat, the wires bundled out of the way of the connection points, labeled and color-coded. “Nice,” he said. “Your work?”

“Mostly, yeah,” Scott said, running his hand through his hair, and making it stick up in all directions. “After the third time I damn near killed myself fixing a short, and going ‘what street drugs was the guy on who laid this wire’ I decided to just stop trying to patch a leaky boat. Took me the better part of a year, which was a lot of work, and credits, but now, at least, it’s easy to maintain. Front loaded all the work, I guess you could say.”

Tony nodded his approval. “Nice.” He tapped one of the incoming wires with the plastic handle of a screwdriver. “If you run these through a nanojoin relay, you can probably increase incremental draw by a couple hundred percent.”

Scott nodded and his eyebrow twitched a little as he did a standard scan-and-slot, which meant he was taking notes in an available secretary program; read-write chips weren’t too out of the ordinary, but it did take very controlled thought processes to use them. The majority of users ended up with stray or random observations mixed in with all the supposed note-taking, making them all but useless.

Sam joined them not long after, flying up and landing neatly on the catwalk. Those wings of his were extraordinary, folding into a pack on his back. The wings and ailerons were made from titanium alloy and fiberweave mesh connections that could double as a shield. Tony’d never seen anything quite like it before.

“That’s an amazing rig,” he told Sam. “You guys have any more of them? Even a broken one I could take apart to see how it works?”

“No,” Sam said, a little harsh, then, softer, “The only other one we had, my partner, Riley, was wearing it when Hydra shot his dumb ass out of the sky. All I could do was watch. He went down... and we couldn’t recover--” Sam stared at the sky, like he was seeing the events happening right then.

Tony winced. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. I just, I’ve never seen anything like it. If you had more of them, you could absolutely own the air.” He considered the pack. “Piloting chip, or native?”

“Native,” Sam said. “You want a chip pilot, get a drone. There’s a feel for it, like instinct. It’s the best thing in the world, being up there. I’ve got a top end flight computer, but I do all the heavy lifting. So to speak.”

“I’m impressed.” He shook his head. “Okay, that’s a dead end for the near future, then. Show me what you’ve got in the way of defenses, here.”

That lead to a heated -- in a friendly manner, for something that involved excessive name calling and insults -- discussion about Sam’s idea of defense, versus Scott’s idea of _actually physically capable of being built, Sam, really_.

But they dragged Tony up, over, and around the entire defense grid, stopped once to grab a bag full of fried fish that they ate while viewing turret-mounted rail guns, and continued on until Tony got a look at the sub-basement fusion generator that provided most of their electric.

By which point it had been dark for several hours, and every bit of Tony was pointing out to him that he was not used to this sort of physical exertion. Ten Rings had worked him hard, but usually it was his arms and head that ached, not his calves and thighs and ass.

He slumped against the wall and lifted his legs one at a time to cautiously stretch them out, even while he watched the flickering lights on the generator’s readout. “Okay,” he said, and stifled a yawn. “Okay, I think I have some ideas, but I need to sleep on them. Let everything gel, you know? Mix it all up into soup and see what kind of flavors emerge.” He hesitated. “That was a terrible metaphor, but you know what I mean, right?”

Scott shook his head, smiling brightly. “No idea whatsoever, that was really… wow. Dickensian. Or something.”

“Sleep,” Sam said, snapping his fingers. “I _knew_ I forgot something.”

“You forgot to sleep?” Scott asked. “That explains _a lot_. How long have you been forgetful.”

“Not me, dumbass,” Sam said. He blew a puff of air out of his mouth. “I was s’posed to get you set up with perm quarters, but-- we got nothing right now that’s habitable and ready. I don’t expect Bucky’ll mind if you sack in with him again tonight.”

Tony almost laughed. “Uh, are you sure about that?” he wondered. “I mean, I’m tired enough I could sleep in a closet right now, so wherever you want to shove me, that’s fine. I’m just saying, the boss has some legitimate complaints, here, in that I am... _not_ what he paid for.”

“It’s a matter of security,” Sam said, rubbing his nose. “You’re wanted by two bosses, Stane and Ten Rings. Hell, probably Hydra while we’re at it, because they love causin’ a ruckus. There’s limited housing that’s inside the security net. We can add a new place on, but it does take time. In the meanwhile, I think Bucky would feel better if he can keep eyes on you.”

Tony held up his hands. “Okay. Wherever you want to put me, like I said. Not like I have a lot of luggage to bring with me. I guess we’ll just... figure it out.” He straightened with a groan and bent over to touch the floor, feeling the stretch in the backs of his thighs. “Jesus, you people have a lot of stairs. Haven’t you ever heard of an elevator?”

Scott gave him a wide-eyed look that was almost too good to be believed. “No,” he said. “What’s that?”

Tony snorted and shoved Scott a little. “Ass,” he said, though it came out fondly. “Okay. Which one of you is going to show me the way back to Bucky’s room, then? I’m totally lost after that maze of twisty-turny passages.” It was a bit of a lie; he was about 80% sure he could find his way back if he needed to. But this gave them an excuse to escort him so the strange newcomer wasn’t left unwatched.

“I need to fly a recon before I turn in, so I’ll leave you in Scott’s capable hands,” Sam said. “Don’t let him talk you into that bee network of his.”

“ _Ants_ , you philistine,” Scott said. “Ant network. Bees have better things to be doing.”

“Whatever,” Sam said. “Bugs are bugs.”

“Does he-- Are you talking about actual insects?” Tony held his hands up to his forehead to mimic wiggling antennae.

“Sure,” Scott said, easily, and he went on to explain about ants and their communication network, especially over long distances, and really, ants were everywhere, no one ever noticed them, and did Tony know about crazy ants, which were apparently an actual species that could short out most major electronics systems, and what if you could harness that all into a central hub?

Tony was only half-listening by the time they made it back to Bucky’s room. It wasn’t that the information wasn’t fascinating, but how the hell did you communicate to the ants what you wanted? Tony couldn’t see a way to make that work. But Scott seemed so excited and happy to have someone to tell about his theory that Tony couldn’t brush him off. So he just nodded and mumbled what he hoped were mostly appropriate responses.

Scott waved at the bio-lock. “It should be still keyed to open for your print, Bucky didn’t have anyone change it.”

Tony hesitated. Not because he thought Scott might be wrong, but because he wasn’t sure what Bucky’s reaction would be if Tony just walked in. He was supposed to have been assigned perm quarters, after all. But there really wasn’t an alternative, either. Tony reached out and pressed his hand to the lock.

The room was lit, but quiet, and a moment after Tony stepped inside, he saw why; Bucky had fallen asleep in his desk chair, a holo-report still floating gently over his head.

He glanced back and gave Scott a little wave, then let the door close. He crouched next to the chair and touched Bucky’s arm lightly. “Hey, boss?”

“Mphnnn,” Bucky said, not particularly intelligently. He shifted a little, but otherwise didn’t seem close to waking up. He was drooling, just a little.

“Bucky?” Tony shook his arm a little. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty. You’re going to regret it if you stay in the chair all night.”

“Wounna be the first time,” Bucky managed, then, “Oh, hey there gorgeous.” He only had one eye open, but seemed to be enjoying the view anyway.

He was still at least three-quarters asleep. “You’re not so bad yourself,” Tony teased lightly, tucking a hand under Bucky’s arm and coaxing him out of the chair. “Come on, time for bed.”

“S’at an order,” Bucky wondered, “or ‘n offer?” He did manage to push himself up from the desk, only to practically drape himself onto Tony’s shoulder like a particularly obnoxious (and heavy) scarf.

Tony managed a bit of a chuckle and hoped Bucky wouldn’t be mad at either of them if he remembered this in the morning. “Whichever one will get you into bed faster,” he said lightly, half-carrying Bucky across the room.

“Who knew, bein’ the boss would be so much paperwork?” Bucky complained, and then stopped at the edge of the sleeping platform. “Boots.”

“I got it,” Tony promised. He sat Bucky on the side of the platform, then bent over to unfasten and pull Bucky’s boots off.

“Don’t know why thas the most sexy thing, _ever_ , even when it’s not,” Bucky opined, still mostly asleep. He tugged his shirt off and unfastened his trousers, even if he didn’t bother to push them off. 

“I don’t know, either,” Tony said, but he wasn’t disagreeing. It felt like the air between them was charged, and he had to fight to take a breath. “Time to go to sleep, boss.”

“S’what I was doin’,” Bucky said, “before you walked in here, lookin’ like that. I mean, how dare--” Bucky managed to get both eyes open and the glare he directed at Tony had an altogether different sort of heat in it.

Tony’s breath caught. “I’m a daring kind of guy,” he managed, though it probably didn’t come out with anything like the insouciance he was aiming for. He pulled off his own boots, let the belt fall to the floor with a thunk and a clatter of tools, and then leaned in until he could feel the soft puff of Bucky’s breath against his face. “Give me your best shot.”

“Hundred an’ ten percent,” Bucky promised, and then kissed him, a series of soft little nuzzles at his mouth, lips apart. Each one lasted just a little longer than the one before, until Tony was panting into Bucky’s mouth, aching and restless.

Tony groaned and wrapped his arms around Bucky’s neck, pushing his fingers into that soft fall of hair. He climbed up onto the platform, straddling Bucky’s thighs and bending down to demand more of those sweet-hot kisses.

Tony’s shirt disappeared like it was a magic trick and Bucky nipped along his throat and collarbone. With an urgent noise, Bucky shifted, practically picking Tony up, to roll him over onto the bed. He rocked his hips once against Tony’s, kissed him again, along his jaw, down his neck, and--

_Snored._

“Bucky?” Tony tipped his head to the side, trying to get a look at Bucky’s face, which was now planted in the crook of Tony’s neck. Bucky’s whole body had gone limp and heavy with sleep.

Tony sighed, willing his blood to cool. He should’ve known they were both too tired to start something, it had just been too tempting. He nuzzled against Bucky’s ear, then tried to roll Bucky off him.

Bucky did not roll.

“Bucky?” Tony squirmed, trying to get an arm free, to get enough leverage to push them over. “Come on, boss, just--” Bucky made a soft, sleepy noise and snuggled even closer.

Tony tried one more time to wriggle free, but Bucky made a discontented, grumbly noise and wrapped an arm around what little of Tony wasn’t under him.

“Right. Well. I guess I live here now.” Bucky was comfortable and warm, and Tony was too tired to really fight it. He kissed the side of Bucky’s head where he could reach, then closed his eyes and let exhaustion drag him under.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the smut-averse - this chapter is mostly that. You might want to skip to the end and read the last four or five paragraphs, though.

Sleep kept grabbing at Bucky with slow, sticky fingers, sucking him down into dreams of heat and a firm body under his. He was aroused, pleasantly so, in a way that meant long hours of lounging in bed, waking to love whenever they felt like it. Days he-- could barely remember, really. Days before Hydra.

So long ago, he could barely remember, but when he could… 

He ground down on the lithe body under his, feeling long muscle and soft skin. He was hard enough to drill for diamonds, and he thought the only reason he wasn’t making love to his partner with care was that there were--

At least two pairs of pants between his cock and where he wanted to be.

That was an odd thought.

He fluttered all the way to near-wakefulness, his nostrils filled with the scent of warm, clean male, soft hair against his cheek, and the feeling of a bed entirely too lumpy-- he rolled his hips again, and heard an answering sigh, which startled him enough that he woke--

All the way up, found himself with his nose pressed tight in the crook of someone’s neck.

“Oh!” He didn’t quite scramble backward, but only because his brain and the rest of his body hadn’t synched up yet.

“Mm,” hummed his bedmate. The bedsheets rustled a little as the man shifted a little, not quite stretching but loosening limbs stiff from sleep. “M’rnin’,” he mumbled, still more than half-asleep. A warm hand wrapped around Bucky’s shoulder, and another little wriggle made clear the fact that Bucky was not the only one with a body ready for action.

Bucky couldn’t help put press into that eager heat, feeling the iron length of his partner -- Tony, his brain supplied helpfully -- against his thigh. “Ain’t you a sight?” 

Which was unusual. Try as he might, Bucky couldn’t trace the path that got him from a three hour meeting with his sub-bosses -- in which Peggy Carter had yelled at him twice and called him an idiot more times than he could count -- to being in bed with his Companion. 

Tony hummed again, rolling up against Bucky’s body, lazily seeking friction, and then his eyes slowly blinked open. “Oh. Good morning.”

Bucky ran a hand down Tony’s shoulder, his side, unable to resist the allure of that bare skin. Even if he couldn’t figure out exactly how they’d gotten here. He had a disjointed impression of going over the street tax documents -- again -- and then nothing. “Visitin’ me in my dreams now, are you?” He traced a spiral over Tony’s wrist.

“Depends,” Tony said, and the hand on Bucky’s shoulder was idly drawing lines and patterns Bucky couldn’t recognize there. “Were they good dreams?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Bucky said, slowly. “Although I can’t ever recall talking about dreaming, while I _was_ dreaming.” Which meant either this was something entirely new, or Tony was, in fact, in Bucky’s bed. 

“No, me either.” Tony’s smile was slow and easy. “So either this is something new, or we’re awake.” His hand slid down over Bucky’s ribs, calluses rasping over the soft skin there, and found their way to the waistband of Bucky’s pants, tracing along the edge, tantalizing.

“Ok, now you’re jus’ reading my mind,” Bucky said, and he lifted a little, pushing up on his cyber arm to give Tony more access. There were deep press-creases in his chest, the distinct pattern of Bucky’s cyber shoulder etched in red against Tony’s skin. “Woah, how th’ hell long have you been here?”

“Hm?” Tony twisted his head to see what Bucky was looking at, and huffed a little. “Came in late. After midnight, not sure how much. You were sleeping in the chair--” He jerked his chin toward the other side of the room. “--and when I tried to get you into bed, you decided I was your own personal teddy bear.” He grinned. “So at least six hours or so.”

“Jeez, why didn’t you wake me up? God, I weigh like two-fifty or so, what with this damn arm,” he said, getting his other hand on the bed so he could roll off.

“I tried. You weren’t having it.” Tony looked more amused than affronted, at least. “Wasn’t worth raising a fuss over. You’re warm, I could breathe okay, it’s fine.”

Tony seemed a little different. Lighter, somehow, more prone to sarcasm and humor than sultry come ons. Bucky wondered if he’d put the Companion chip back in. And then he wondered if it mattered. Well, no, of course it-- but did it? He wanted to ask.

He wanted to ask a lot of things, but he was afraid the answer would be no. Or maybe yes, and he couldn’t quite decide how he felt about either of those things. “So, this is fine?” Bucky settled on, and then settled in, laying back down on Tony, deliberately thinking heavy thoughts.

“Uff,” Tony breathed, chuckling a little. “I mean, if that’s what you really want to be doing with the morning, I guess.”

“Or, maybe this is more to your taste,” Bucky suggested, and he lifted again, just a bit, and stropped himself against Tony’s body. It didn’t matter, Bucky decided. If he had the chip or he didn’t. Chips didn’t override a person’s will. Tony was here because he’d chosen to be here, right?

Tony bit his lip as he arched up into Bucky’s body. “Better,” he said, just a touch breathless. “Definitely better.”

“Little bit of wake-up lovin’,” Bucky said more than asked, “ain’t much finer than that.” He leaned in, nuzzled at Tony’s jaw, avoiding his lips out of courtesy for Bucky’s probable morning breath.

Tony tipped his chin up and to the side, offering more of his throat to Bucky’s exploration. “Yeah,” he sighed. “That’s... Oh, that’s nice.” His fingers slid below the band of Bucky’s pants, teasing at the swell of Bucky’s hip and ass, and one leg pulled to the side, letting Bucky slot himself snugly into the vee of Tony’s thighs.

Tony’s skin was warm and soft and smelled like oil and dust. He’d been busy, Bucky recalled. The test -- to see if he was trustworthy. Bucky hadn’t gotten the results of that. But he rather imagined if Tony had proved to be a Ten Rings spy, he wouldn’t have waited until Bucky was awake and randy before committing that final betrayal. 

Or, on the other hand, Bucky thought, because his brain never really stopped worrying about things -- it was the only bad thing about no longer being strictly under Hydra’s orders. When he was the Winter Soldier, he never worried that things were going to go wrong, because that wasn’t his problem -- he could have killed Scott and Sam, and was waiting until after sex to take Bucky out.

He pushed up a bit to look at Tony.

The idea of the fluffy-headed boy-genius reluctant-companion as an assassin was ridiculous. Which, Bucky had to admit, would be the best place to put one. Where no one ever suspected.

“Did you have fun yesterday, crawling around the walls and ducts?” Bucky wondered, as if he was making conversation, then nuzzled at Tony’s throat, licking his way to the hollow just above his breastbone. If he was going to be assassinated, he might as well have some fun first, right?

“Sure,” Tony said, a little distractedly, arching into Bucky’s mouth. “Scott’s damned good, I hope you’re paying him what he’s worth. I’m supposed to meet him later to go over my ideas for-- ah! Shit, right there, yes...” He trailed off, one hand stroking restlessly over Bucky’s back and shoulders, the other brushing through Bucky’s hair.

Bucky grinned and slithered downward, kissing a line from the middle of Tony’s chest down to his belly. “I always pay more than people are worth,” Bucky said, amiably. Which was, point of fact, quite true. He’d paid a ridiculous amount for Tony -- at least five times what any Companion was worth, according to Peggy’s complaints.

“Is that -- _oh_ \-- what you really want to be talking about right now?” Tony said plaintively. His hand in Bucky’s hair was tugging, pushing, trying to direct Bucky’s mouth where he wanted it to go, but not very insistently, apparently mostly willing to let Bucky explore. “So many better things to do with our mouths right now.”

“I can multitask,” Bucky said, mock-hurt. He found a soft patch of skin right over Tony’s hip that made him squirm as Bucky tongued it.

Tony whined and writhed, hands falling to fist in the bedsheets. “Bucky, oh, god, please--”

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, and he tugged at the ties that held Tony’s pants closed -- or, actually _Bucky’s_ pants, which shot a thrill of something hot and possessive down Bucky’s spine. There, he yanked the soft fabric down around Tony’s thighs, revealing that olive skin and Tony’s dark, proud cock. “Something you want?”

Tony hissed and then whined, twisting and arching in an attempt to get friction. “Touch me,” he gasped. “Bucky--” He was beautiful and completely abandoned, desperately needy and unselfconscious about it.

“Now that sounds like a plan,” Bucky agreed. He shifted a bit so his arm wasn’t leaning entirely on Tony’s leg, that wouldn’t be comfortable for either of them, and then licked a wet stripe right up Tony’s cock, feeling it twitch under him like it had a mind of its own.

Tony cursed and his knuckles turned white where they clenched on the blanket, his breath coming in panting gasps. “Fuck, yes, yes, like that, more,” he begged, legs trembling with the effort of holding even mostly still.

More was easy. More was exactly what Bucky _wanted_ to do, get that beautiful man weak and desperate. Wanted it to be good, sweet, satisfying, enough so Tony would want to be in Bucky’s bed, in Bucky’s life--

That… that was an odd thought, and if Bucky considered it too much, he might lose the plot, so he tucked it in his mental _I’ll think about that tomorrow_ file, and brought his brain back ‘round to the business at hand.

He slid both hands under Tony’s thighs, cupping the edge of his ass and rocking them together, feeling the press of Tony’s length in his throat, moving his tongue in the bare space left, sucking air in as he drew back. “You’re so sweet,” Bucky told him, before gasping for breath, and then taking Tony all the way down in one long, slow, wet slide.

“Oh god,” Tony croaked and gave up all pretense of holding it together. His whole body shuddered and the sound that leaked from his throat was hungry and needy and bordering on overwhelmed. “Fuck, _fuck_ , I’m not going to last,” he panted, “you feel too good, _god_...”

Bucky made a sort of encouraging humming noise, pleased at the way Tony trembled under his ministrations. He wasn’t rude enough to talk with his mouth full, and pulling off Tony’s dick right now would be cruel and unusual. Maybe, if they had a chance to do it more, Bucky would draw things out, make them intense and just on the right side of torture, but they were still learning each other, still figuring it out.

And Bucky had a rather pressing need to find out what Tony sounded like when he fell apart, knowing that Bucky had caused it. Clearheaded, uninjured, and knowing what he wanted.

Tony gasped and groaned, and the soft whine at the back of his throat slid upward into keening. His back arched and his head tossed. “Oh god oh god oh fuck, I’m gonna--” He came almost without warning, a hot flood and a loud cry that might or might not have been Bucky’s name.

Bucky’s fingers dug into Tony’s thighs, holding him still, holding him down, just _holding_ him. He swallowed, relishing the noises that Tony was making, the way he writhed and squirmed. It was perfect, better than perfect. All the superlatives.

He licked Tony once over, getting him through aftershocks, and then pulled back, leaning on his elbow and feeling incredibly smug. “Hey there,” he said, nonsensically, because he always felt like he had to say something in that moment, when he had those moments -- he didn’t really want to remember how very long it had been since he’d had little moments -- and he never quite knew what _to say_. Hey there. An acknowledgement that something incredible had just happened, and that they’d shared it, without putting too much weight or attachment on it.

“Uh-huh,” Tony managed, panting. Limply, he lifted a hand and petted Bucky’s hair. “Give me just a sec, here. God, that was. Amazing.”

Bucky smirked, squirming up until he was laying at Tony’s side, his own arousal not flagging, but not particularly urgent, either. He rained a few light kisses down on Tony’s forehead, nose, cheeks, until Tony was giggling, and then blew lightly in his ear. That got him a full body shudder, beautiful and delicious.

Bucky bit the shell of Tony’s ear, a light nip, and--

Tony wasn’t wearing a chip at all. The slot was open, and while it was no longer infected, it still looked a little pink and raw. Bucky didn’t quite want to comment on that, either.

He wasn’t sure what it meant.

Before he could think of anything to say, Tony rolled to face him, those big, pretty eyes darkened with desire, a hint of a smile tugging at one corner of his lips. “Now that’s a _good morning_ ,” he said. He ran a hand down Bucky’s chest. “Ready to take your turn?”

Bucky caught Tony’s hand on its trajectory, drew it up to his face and deposited a kiss in Tony’s palm. “I’ll take whatever you’ll give me.”

Tony paused to look at Bucky’s face, his own suddenly soft. He opened his mouth, closed it with a small shake of his head, then leaned in to brush a quick kiss across Bucky’s lips. It spilled over Bucky’s jaw and down onto the throat, the light scratch of Tony’s beard a delicious counterpoint to the soft heat of his lips.

He followed the contour of Bucky’s body, testing each dip and crease, apparently enjoying every little noise that was chased out of Bucky’s throat. “Mm, you have such pretty reactions,” he purred, looking up at Bucky through his lashes as he flicked his tongue over Bucky’s nipple again.

All of his skin was sensitive, a side effect of all the bio and cyber enhancements Hydra had plugged into his unwilling body. 

It was nice -- better than nice, really -- to find something worthwhile about it. That not every part of him had to be a tool for war. Bucky arched into it, whining.

Tony followed a winding but inexorable path downward, hands pushing Bucky’s pants out of the way so he could suck on the jut of Bucky’s hip. “You taste delicious,” Tony said. “I could do this all day.”

“Careful, too much talk like that’s gonna go straight to--” Bucky groaned, “my head.” Well, that was sort of the point, wasn’t it?

“And then, what? You’ll want me to do this some more? Oh no, a fate worse than death.” It came out dry as a desert, but his eyes sparked with amusement. Before Bucky could answer, he dipped his head to suck in Bucky’s cock, taking it deep, until it brushed the back of Tony’s throat. He hummed, and his tongue sort of... _undulated_ , a sensation not quite like anything Bucky had ever imagined before.

Bucky surged, every muscle in his body tightening up to nearly unbearable levels, his heart thudding like crazy, blood rushing through his veins. His skin prickled with goose flesh, sweeping him over with waves of hot and cold, until he didn’t know which way was up. “Oh, god,” he managed. “Tony--”

Tony’s hands caught his hips, squeezing, pinning Bucky down with surprising strength. He worked Bucky ruthlessly, no finesse or teasing, looking up every few strokes from under his eyelashes, hungry and demanding.

In the end, it was more the intense fascination of Tony’s gaze that shoved Bucky over the edge, rather than his technique. There had been something -- not quite mechanical, never that -- but too _polished_ about Tony with the chip in. This was raw.

This was _real_.

Bucky cried out, losing his entire brain in a whitehot blaze, like fire that purified rather than destroying.

“Tony!”

Tony stayed with him through the aftershocks, until a hint of overstimulation made Bucky wince and draw back. He sat up, then, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand and watching Bucky with a pleased, smug expression. “Not bad for flying without a chip,” he said lightly.

“Natural talent,” Bucky agreed, when he could find his words again. He thought it came out cheerful, friendly, and not as wrecked as he felt.

He wasn’t sure why it would be a mistake to let himself get attached.

He wasn’t even sure it was a mistake.

Bucky took a deep breath, and then said, “So, uh… I mighta said something to one of the crews about finding you a residence, something more... permanent, that you could remodel to your liking. Or-- you know, you can stay here.”

For an invitation to cohabitate, it was about the most graceless thing Bucky had ever said. 

He didn’t think he was imagining the surprise in Tony’s eyes, though, or the instant of raw vulnerability before Tony locked it away. “I’d... like to stay, I think,” he said carefully. “I mean, Sam said last night that there wasn’t really anything habitable available right now, anyway. So we can give it a try, at least. You can always bounce me to a perm residence if it turns out I’m a lousy roommate.” He ended that on a cheerful, devil-may-care note that rang too false to be anything but a defensive guard.

“Stay, then,” Bucky said, warmed and protective and possessive all at the same time. _Stay, and be mine._


	8. Chapter 8

Scott’s workshop was starting to feel like home, or something close to it. Tony had his own workstation, which Scott had ceded to him the second day, which was slowly accumulating not merely tools but other stuff as well. A scarf that Bucky had found in the midst of trading and given him because it was often cold up on the catwalks which housed the forcefield generators. A coffee mug with a bullseye target painted on it and the slogan, _We aim to please... and shoot to kill!_

The kind of stuff that meant belonging somewhere.

He’d drawn up schematics for improvements to the forcefield generators and several of the other defenses, but had left them to Scott to implement. Scott was more than talented enough to handle the upgrades, and Tony figured that him digging around in the turf’s most critical hardware might make some people nervous.

Instead, he was slowly building a chip recorder. Actually purchasing one was prohibitively expensive -- no single turf could possibly afford one; usually four or five moderately prosperous turfs built an alliance around the purchase, because turfs with a chip recorder could basically issue their own cred.

Tony had designed his own custom chips, but a general recorder was a different order of complexity all its own. A poorly built chip could wreak all kinds of terrible havoc on the unlucky sod who slotted it, so he was taking his time and making sure every component was exactly the way he’d designed it. He’d never done it before, and was enjoying the challenge.

Bucky, on the other hand, worked odd hours, responding to the demands of the population with alacrity. The folk, themselves, had basically decided that Tony was in fact Bucky’s personal Companion, and while there was a Company house on the territory, no one else had such a luxury. From what little bit that Tony was getting of the rumors -- no one wanted to be caught talking trash about the Boss with the Boss’s piece of tail listening -- this had served to calm some of the worries they had. A Boss that didn’t take more than his share, that kept a modest suite of rooms -- in addition to the bedroom, Bucky had a training room, and an entertainment area, as well as a larger, more public ball room -- was a boss that made everyone nervous. Mostly because everyone kept wondering what he was getting from all the work.

Which meant some days, Bucky might wake Tony up slowly, and then have a lingering breakfast, or some days he was gone before the sky was even grey with pre-dawn light. At least twice, Bucky hadn’t come home at all, staggering in to sleep in the morning. 

Tony didn’t ask where he’d been.

When Bucky was ready to trust him -- if ever -- then maybe Bucky would tell him. Or maybe not; some Bosses were close-mouthed even with their families and closest advisors, as Tony knew well.

So he kept his head down, mostly -- partly because he didn’t want to cause a lot of trouble, and partly because he was supposed to be _dead_ and he didn’t want word of his continued existence to drift back over Bucky’s borders into Ten Rings or Stane turf. Most mornings, Scott would turn up at Bucky’s door to bring Tony down to the workshop -- Tony hadn’t figured out if Scott thought he still needed a guide, or if there was enough lingering suspicion about Tony’s presence in Commando turf that he needed an escort.

They’d work through the day, and then Scott would bring Tony back to Bucky’s quarters around dinnertime. If Bucky was there, they’d eat together, talking about the day’s difficulties and minor triumphs, and then go to bed.

And that was getting to be a problem, maybe. Bucky was damned addictive, sweet and hot, gentle with just the right amount of roughness to keep things exciting and fun. He fucked like Tony _mattered_ to him, like he genuinely _liked_ Tony, wanted Tony to feel good as much as he himself wanted to get off.

And he was just as attentive and caring out of bed -- at least, when the demands of being Boss hadn’t run him into exhaustion, anyway.

Tony was afraid he was falling for Bucky, hard and fast.

Tony pushed those thoughts out of his mind; they weren’t important, at least until something demanded the situation change, and none of it was anything he could do anything about. The laser etching head was a delicate, fiddly little piece, and Tony’d had to pull it out and file it down a few times, trying to fit it exactly so inside the other complex components.

He about died of a heart attack when suddenly the lights flickered, went red, and an ear-splitting siren cracked the air.

He put the etching head down and flipped a polishing cloth over it so it wouldn’t roll out of sight. “What’s the sitch?” he asked -- well, yelled, over the siren -- Scott. “What’s going on?”

Scott yanked himself out from under the truck, where he’d been replacing a blown gasket. “Turf invasion. Come on.” He grabbed one of the yellow backpacks from the lockers, shouldered it. “Gotta get you down to the shelters. All non-combatants.”

“I can fight,” Tony protested, though he followed Scott out into the hall. “For fuck’s sake, my dad carved out his turf with weapons he’d built himself. I can handle a weapon! At least let me man one of the defensive stations. Repair crew. Something. I can’t just sit in the cellars and wait for the shooting to stop.”

Scott scowled. “Bucky had specific orders-- _you stay safe_!” Despite that, Scott was looking around, as if expecting to see Bucky swooping down to tell him off at any minute. “Fuuuuuuck, okay, come on, and if anyone asks, I’m gonna say you ran away and it’s on your own head.”

Tony grinned. “One hundred percent my fault, you got it. Let’s go!”

Scott ducked into an empty room -- looked like one of the classrooms Tony had seen a few times in passing -- and grabbed another yellow backpack. “First aid kit, comm unit-- don’t you say shit on it, just listen! Gun, ammo, flares. A few odds and ends. I’m gonna put you up on a roof in one of the hides. You shoot anything that’s wearing Ten Rings gear. Be sure what you’re aiming at, you don’t know everyone in the turf yet.”

Tony nodded. “You got it. On the plus side, I know more of the Ten Rings crew -- especially the fighting crew -- than I’d really like to.” He tucked the gun into his belt and stuffed a handful of ammo into a pocket, then slung the backpack over one shoulder and followed Scott up the stairs.

“Bucky’s going to kill me twice if you so much as get a scratch, so don’t do anything stupid,” Scott said. He opened the door, showed Tony into a small room that had several narrow ports to shoot through, but would be all but impossible for anyone but a sharpshooter to return fire effectively. “We have these scattered all over so no one’s too far from a weapon or armor. Honestly, I don’t know where you got an invasion kit.”

Scott gave Tony a wide-eyed look, and then ducked in and hugged him, utterly unexpectedly, hard, and thumped him on the back a few times, before running off to man his own post.

Tony watched him go, bemused. Affection was... not something Tony was much used to. Certainly not from someone who wasn’t trying to get something out of him.

He shook it off -- now was _not_ the time -- and surveyed the view from the ports, selecting his angle as he fitted the comm unit into his ear. He listened to the sitrep and check ins spool as he examined the gun -- not the best but serviceable, in excellent working condition -- and loaded it.

“Baker Street’s got three squads,” someone said, and Tony could hear the gunfire through the comm before it registered, as faint popping sounds, outside. 

“I’m on it,” someone else said. “Hold them, five minutes, en route.”

“What the hell brought the shield down?” That was Bucky. “I’ve got eyes on something that looks like goddamn _battle armor_.”

Oh, fuck. Oh, _fuck_.

Tony had been forced to abandon the battle armor he’d built to escape the Ten Rings turf, but he thought he’d hidden it well enough, scattered the pieces. But if they’d found them and put it back together -- the repulsors Tony had designed had a specialized frequency that could slice through forcefield barriers like butter. He’d used it to break out of his cell.

“Where are you?” Tony demanded, already running for the stairs. Scott would be mad that he hadn’t maintained silence, but he was the only one who knew that armor well enough to exploit its weaknesses before it decimated the Commandos.

“Z’at your side-item on the line, Buck? What the hell--” Behind the complaint, a familiar sound: a repulsor charging up.

“Duck, damn it, and _tell me where that armor is!_ ” Tony ran up a flight to find a wider view of the area.

“Tony, get your ass--” Something exploded, and Tony could hear Bucky cursing fervently before he came back on the line. “What the _hell_ is that thing? It just-- Sam, get medical over here, we’ve got wounded, Chestnut Avenue by Midwood.”

Oh, Christ, there were perm residences over there. Tony hoped that Scott was right and all the civilians had bolted for shelter. But still, their _homes_. He scanned the rooftops. There weren’t any major breaks between him and Midwood; he wouldn’t have to slow down to descend to the ground. He calculated his path, stomped his boots a couple of times to make sure his feet were settled and wouldn’t slip, and took off running.

There might have been more screaming, orders from Bucky and at least one of his lieutenants to get his ass to safety, but Tony didn’t have time to listen. He heard the repulsors fire, once, twice.

An explosion rocked the very ground; Tony didn’t know which side had set it off. Tony caught a blur of movement and looked to his left to see Sam flying in, wings spread. He was carrying a gun in each hand, attached to some sort of autoload and retraction belt. When Sam got in position, he hovered, firing, but Tony could have told him not to bother, if Tony had room for anything aside from _running_.

“Not even a scratch,” Sam swore. “Where’d they get tech like that?”

“Someone get the AVT off the wall and pointed this way,” Bucky snapped. “It’s built like a tank, maybe we can hit it like a tank.”

“No,” Tony gasped. He set his jaw and jumped to the next building. “Too much... collateral... damage.” He was panting, trying to talk and sprint at the same time. He could see it now, in glimpses between buildings. Almost there. He groped in his tool belt. Screwdriver, something long and bladed... Ah!

Whoever was wearing the armor was facing away -- the first piece of luck in this whole mess. Tony adjusted his path and slowed down a little, running on the balls of his feet so he’d be a little quieter, and hoped like hell that whoever was in the suit hadn’t been able to activate the tracking systems.

He breathed a silent prayer to gods that were almost certainly never listening, and jumped, landing on the thing’s back like a monkey, wrapping an arm around its neck not to strangle it but to keep himself from sliding off immediately. He fumbled for the screwdriver.

Whoever was piloting spun around madly, trying to force Tony off, metal arms flailing badly. Inaccurate, and apparently they’d done something wrong putting the armor back together, because he should have been able to grab Tony, but couldn’t manage it. That didn’t mean Tony didn’t get smacked several times with metal-hard blows. 

More bullets, probably from one of Bucky’s soldiers who had no idea that Tony was there at all, and was just terrified, and Tony was never so glad for someone else’s lousy aim than he was in that moment.

“Cease fire, cease-- fuckin’ _stop_ ,” Bucky was yelling over the comms.

Tony jammed the tip of the screwdriver into the join of the helmet and neck and pried open the panel. It didn’t want to open -- it wasn’t _supposed_ to open while the suit was in operation -- but Tony finally managed it, somehow. The primary relay mimicked a human nervous system; if he could reach in and sever the “spinal cord”, it would collapse, utterly inert.

He didn’t have time for finesse. He reached in and _yanked_ , pulling hard at every delicate solder point and join.

Electricity jolted out of the mechanism, a searing, jolting agony, and then--

The armor stopped moving, one arm stuck upright, the legs off balance. With all the grace of a dead cow, the armor toppled over, with Tony still too limp from the shock to move. Fortunately for Tony, he landed on it, instead of the other way around.

It still wasn’t pleasant.

“Fuck,” he gasped. He let himself just lie there for a long minute, lungs aching from the frantic run, heart pounding from adrenaline. The not-so-distant sound of gunfire reminded him that there were other intruders to be dealt with. He groaned and pushed himself upright.

Tony had heard stories about the Winter Soldier his whole life. Everyone had. And while he’d been told, he never quite believed.

Right up until Bucky walked across the battlefield, pistol in each hand, picking off the few ground troops that remained. His whole body moved with the deliberation of an incoming missile, and his face was impassive. He killed without looking, without blinking, without stopping his stride. There was probably something really wrong with Tony that he had an instant where he felt like he might cream his jeans right there.

“What the _sam hill_ do you think you’re doing?” Bucky demanded.

Tony pointed at the limp armor on the ground. “Saving the entire damn _turf_ from being leveled,” he snapped back. “You _might’ve_ brought it down with the AVT but it would’ve taken multiple shots, and you’d have leveled at least four blocks in the process.”

“You utter lunatic,” Bucky snapped back, eyes blazing with the sort of anger Tony recognized as _knowing the other person was right and being pissed off anyway_. “Reckless, irresponsible-- I swear to God, I aged fifty fuckin’ years. _My own men almost shot you!_ ”

“Yeah, we need to get them some better targeting chips,” Tony agreed. He reached up and snared a handful of Bucky’s tactical vest, pulling him just a little closer, close enough to feel the puff of Bucky’s breath. “Hey. I’m okay.”

“I ought to _spank you_ for scarin’ me half to death,” Bucky growled. He yanked Tony in and planted a bruising kiss against his mouth.

Tony gasped into the kiss and sank his hand into Bucky’s hair. “I don’t think that threat’s going to have the effect you’re hoping for,” he murmured as soon as Bucky let him breathe again. “In that a spanking sounds really, really hot.”

“Can you two put a cork in it until after we get rid of Ten Rings?” Sam demanded, flying by. “We’ve still got two more squads that broke in when the shield went down, and-- shit, we’re gonna need to do a house by house, in case one of ‘em tries to hide.”

“Right,” Bucky said, and it took him a minute to let go of Tony. “Right-- Sam, give air support. Clint--”

“Already there, boss,” Clint said, lazily. “Gonna use up the last of my explosive arrows, but I think it’s worth it. Brace for a boom.”

Tony made a mental note to move Clint’s arrows to the top of the weapons priority list, and shoved the slightly mangled screwdriver back into his tool belt. “Where’d they come in?” he asked. “They overwhelmed the forcefield generator with sustained repulsor bursts, but it should only take me a minute to get it back up and running. The damage should be electrical, not physical. Mostly.”

“Sam, give him a lift,” Bucky said. He stalked off, anger and offense still bristling off him like a wet cat.

“God, I hope you didn’t eat a lot of breakfast,” Sam muttered, turning Tony roughly to grab a handful of his belt and backpack.

“I can’t possibly weigh as much as Bucky,” Tony pointed out. He looked down at the rapidly receding ground. “So this is undignified.”

“So, make your own damn wings and learn to fly,” Sam said. “Need t’ get back, so I’m just gonna drag and drop. Don’t fall off the roof.”

Sam was as good -- or as bad -- as his word, dropping Tony from at least five more feet higher than absolutely necessary, jarring bones already aching from his run in with his own damn armor.

Tony laid flat and huffed for a few seconds -- he still hadn’t entirely caught his wind from the run -- and then rolled up onto his knees to look around. Yep, there was the generator, and yeah, those looked like repulsor burn scorchmarks on the outer face. He half-crawled over to the thing and opened up the panel. “It’s going to be okay, baby,” he crooned. “Show me where the bad man touched you.”

“Uh, you do know you’re still on comms, right?” Scott asked, suddenly.

Fuck. He had, actually, forgotten about the comms. “Of course,” he lied easily, checking over the connections. “I want you all to appreciate my genius. Things react better if you talk to them, you know. I’m sure I read that somewhere.”

“Pretty sure they were talking about plants,” Scott said, cheerfully. “Or _babies_. Not power generators.”

“Have you _tried_ talking to your generators?” Tony asked reasonably. He reached in and disconnected the primary power supply and pulled it out. “You never know until you try.”

“If you two mechanical morons don’t mind, I’m trying to murder Ten Rings here,” Clint said. 

“Clear the air,” Bucky snapped, “and get to work.”

Tony had a smart response to that practically ready to fall off his tongue before he remembered the comms. He swallowed it and got to work.


	9. Chapter 9

After action tended to be a busy time for the Boss. Bucky had to make sure all the wounded were carried off to medical -- on stretchers, if need be -- and locate the fallen. He had to hear reports on what had happened. He had to send armed searchers out to round up any enemies that might also be wounded, or hiding, or laying in wait for the chance to assassinate someone.

He had to organize repairs for the broken generators -- although Tony had attended to that promptly -- and get reports on how much damage there’d been to homes, shops, and public buildings.

The Ten Rings' dead needed to be stacked in the hearse -- after being stripped of chips, weapons, armor, and anything of value -- and sent to the border in case Ten Rings had any honor and wanted to claim their fallen.

And then there was the fact that he ended up with three _prisoners_ , a totally unheard of situation. First was the man in the armor; trapped in the rig and they still couldn’t get him out. Bucky had a few guards stand over it, until they could figure that thing out. And two of them had out and out _surrendered_. Bucky had them locked up in the drunk tank while he tried to decide what to do with them.

Enough time to deal with the raid, and Bucky was more exhausted than angry. His own wounds had healed a while ago, superficial cuts and bruises, and a cracked rib that was still a little tender, but there wasn’t much anyone could do about it, so he let the nanites do their thing without worrying anyone.

When he finally, finally, returned to his quarters, they were empty.

No Tony.

Bucky, who’d been trying really hard to ignore his Companion and the way his heart had almost stopped when Tony leaped -- literally, _leaped_ \-- into the very center of danger, went all the way back to full panic mode.

Tony had said he was fine, he wasn’t injured, but if he still wasn’t home--

Bucky nearly left contrails behind him as he slammed the door and dashed off to medical.

Tony was in medical. Not in a bed, bandaged and bleeding, but in the lab amidst what looked like a small explosion of parts, standing in the middle of the fabricator, stretching up until his shirt no longer covered his belly to do... something to it. He was muttering a string of what sounded like nonsense words to Bucky as he worked, deftly re-connecting a cable.

He finished that and then turned to pick up another part off the floor, and spotted Bucky. “Oh, hey! Are you-- The tech stepped out for a coffee after the first wave, but she should be back soon if you need medical.” He paused, eyeing Bucky’s face. “Are you okay?”

Bucky’s relief was so great, he forgot that he was angry. “No, what? I’m healing. What-- what are _you_ doing?” It probably wasn’t very long lasting, that feel of joyous respite that babbled in his head, _he’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay._

“Fixing the fabricator,” Tony said. “It had a bad cable -- just age, wear and tear, you know, but it was causing some glitches and the tech said if I didn’t mind looking at it, it could save on materials and time, so...” He shrugged, then scooped up a part and reached up to start fixing it into place.

Bucky was utterly nonplussed by that answer, just stood there, hovering in the doorway, barely breathing. Tony, taking silence for consent, went back to work, although there was a tension in his shoulders that Bucky knew from seeing it in so many sets of shoulders before. It was the “waiting for punishment” fear; that Bucky would yell or strike. He’d seen it in his folk, he’d seen it when he was Hydra’s main enforcer and assassin, he’d seen it when he’d been knee high to a grasshopper with his own Boss getting ready to tear him and Steve a new asshole, back in the day.

Bucky hated it.

After years of being feared, loathed, regarded with the same dismay as an oncoming hurricane, violent and inevitable and random, Bucky did not like it when people regarded him with fear.

Tony should never, ever, have any reason to _fear Bucky_.

“You’re not hurt?”

“What?” Tony stopped working to look at Bucky. “No. I mean, bruises and scrapes, but nothing serious.”

“Glad to hear it,” Bucky said. “I went home, you weren’t there-- I thought something happened to you.” Which was as close as he was going to get to _please don’t leave, please don’t get hurt_. There was a painful squeeze in the middle of Bucky’s chest at the very idea of Tony laying, broken and battered, in a med-cot. Or worse, cold and still on the ground.

Which wasn’t entirely normal. Bucky worried about his folk -- a champion worrier, Sam sometimes teased him -- but that heart-stopping, dry throat, near-panic feeling.

“No, I’m fine. You went-- what time is it?” Tony leaned sideways to check the chrono. “Oh, wow, yeah, it’s later than I thought.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t eaten, then?” Bucky surmised, because Tony seemed to do that, get lost in a project and forget to eat, or take a break. Scott had told him so, and Bucky kept meaning to make a standing order with Angie, the cook, to have Tony sent a lunch on days he was down at the workshop. There was something very tender that made Bucky’s muscles feel oddly loose and warm, when he said, “You want to finish up here, and come grab something to eat with me? Pryde and Joy -- I don’t think you’ve been there, th’ cantina? That’ll be open late, after the day we’ve all had.”

The look Tony gave him was a little surprised, and then cautiously hopeful, and some of that fearful anticipation eased from his shoulders. “That sounds nice. This won’t take too much longer,” he added. “I know it looks like a lot, but it goes back in a lot faster than it came out.”

Bucky thought about telling him; that Bucky might yell sometimes, especially when he was scared. Scared was a new-ish emotion, or an old one that he’d forgotten, and he still didn’t have a really good hold of it, but Bucky never would strike, or punish with impunity. There was a council for infractions, and Tony would have a chance to present his side of things. Bucky didn’t deal much with _enforcement_ , anyway. Not anymore. 

In fact, he was getting ready to open his mouth around the words, when something Steve once said, so many years ago, Bucky could barely remember-- were they in their twenties, or were they children? -- _If you’ve gotta tell a partner you’re a nice guy, it’s because you’re not acting nice._ They must have at least been in their teens, when Steve started picking fights because some bully would try to insist on a dance or a kiss, and Steve, all ninety pounds of him, would get right up in their face about it. _She said no._

If Bucky had to tell Tony that Tony didn’t have to be afraid, it was because Bucky wasn’t doing enough to keep Tony from _being afraid_. And telling him wasn’t going to make a damn bit of difference.

_Actions speak louder than words._

“Okay,” Bucky said, finally. “I’m gonna go look to the wounded, make a little visit. Folk like that kind of thing, lets them know they’re cared for an’ appreciated. You’ll be done, twenty minutes, when I get back?”

Tony eyed the detritus on the floor, glanced up into the fabricator, and waggled a hand. “Maybe closer to thirty,” he said. “Just so I can test and make sure it’s all working right.”

“All right,” Bucky said. He’d probably be closer to forty anyway; people did tend to talk, and injured people more than anything. They wanted to tell you all about how they got hurt, and what it felt like. Made it more real to them, and shared pain was always pain lessened. He moved to the edge of the cruft on the floor. “Give me a kiss then, and I’ll get out of your way.”

Tony looked surprised again, and then he leaned carefully over the parts to meet Bucky in a kiss, lingering and sweet. “I know you’ve got stuff you need to do,” he said when Bucky pulled back, “but for the record, you wouldn’t be in the way.”

The taste of Tony’s mouth lingered on Bucky’s tongue, the way the dull heat in his belly tended to linger, even when Tony wasn’t around.

When he made it to the door, Bucky paused to look back, and there was something utterly satisfying about watching Tony work, the way his hands seemed to know exactly what to do, his hair sticking up at all angles, his tongue jutting out of the corner of his mouth as he poked and prodded. The way he stroked the machine, like he was soothing it.

That warm-fuzzy-happy-relieved feeling still strong in Bucky’s chest, he went to make his rounds of the wounded, if any were still awake.

And thought he may very well be in a lot of trouble.

***

Tony fought the urge to sigh in relief when the medbay door closed behind Bucky. Not that he didn’t enjoy Bucky’s company, but the man was so _confusing_.

He’d come looking for Tony, specifically. To make sure he was all right. And then hadn’t seemed upset with Tony for getting lost in the project. Unless he was specifically saving up his displeasure to humiliate Tony publicly, in the cantina. But that didn’t seem like Bucky’s style.

Bucky was going to take Tony to the cantina for dinner, and that was... different. They’d been eating -- when their schedules allowed them to eat together -- privately, in Bucky’s rooms. And that was fine, Tony enjoyed that, but letting himself be seen out in public with Tony, that was... something else. Not like most of the turf didn’t already know that Tony was Bucky’s Companion (more or less; Tony hadn’t slotted the companion chip since that first encounter, but the turf mostly didn’t know _that_ \-- even Scott seemed to think Tony was switching back to the companion chip when their work was done for the day).

But still, being seen together, that was... It meant something. If only Tony knew _what_.

He tried to push Bucky out of his thoughts and finish fixing the fabricator. The turf needed a medical fabricator that could create sterile bandages and splints and casts and medications and artificial organs (if they had a medic capable of that surgery) and whatever else the medical fabricator was supposed to create. And they deserved for it not to be glitchy _again_ because Tony was distracted while putting it together.

He was only partly successful -- every time he turned around for the next part, he’d glance at the doorway in continued bemusement and wonder -- but he managed to get the thing rebuilt, anyway. He called up the control console and skimmed through the menus. He set it to fabricate several doses of painkillers -- there were those in the turf who’d need them, anyway, after the day’s events -- and stepped back to watch it working.

Not that there was much to see from the outside; it hummed and vibrated a little, lights flickering and status bars filling. But the glitch the tech had described didn’t reoccur, and Tony grinned as he opened the dispensary slot and took out a handful of packets, each neatly labeled, still slightly warm.

“Oh, that’ll be handy,” the tech said, as she came back in, yawning. If she’d introduced herself, Tony’d forgotten the name, and the tech didn’t seem to expect one given. “I’ll pass some of these out, an’ I’m gonna sack on the cot, in case anyone needs me. Go home, sleep.”

“Bucky and I are going to get some food first, but yeah, sleep sounds like a good idea,” Tony agreed. But the tech obviously wanted her own sleep, so Tony slipped out of the medbay to wait in the hall.

He wasn’t waiting too long, but it was a wait before Bucky finally came back. He was walking slow, one hand against the wall like it was leading him where he wanted to go, or holding him up. But when he glanced up and saw Tony waiting for him, his whole face lit up. “All set?”

“Sure,” Tony said. “Are you sure you don’t want to just get some sleep instead? You look pretty tired.”

“Food first,” Bucky said. “My nanites run on calories, just like the rest of me does. If I don’t refuel them regularly, I can, in fact, go into a coma. Hydra used to stick me in the fridge when I wasn’t needed, just so I wouldn’t eat so much.” Bucky said that very calmly, but there was something _tense_ about it.

“Well that sounds horrible,” Tony said. He hesitated, but Bucky still looked tired and now unhappy for having to recall something so awful, so Tony reached out and took Bucky’s hand, hoping to provide comfort, or at least ground Bucky in the present.

Bucky looked down at their joined hands, and then smiled. “We live to fight another day,” he said. “Time to lick our wounds, and remind ourselves of what we still have. Our homes, our lives. Each other.”

The mood at the cantina seemed very much to reflect Bucky’s philosophy. People were celebrating, displaying the loot they’d gotten from dead Ten Rings members, recounting their heroics. Drinking. A lot of drinking was going on. At least two people were passed out in their chairs.

Sam was up on one of the tables, dancing completely out of time with the music, with a woman with shiny brown hair and a scarlet coat.

Tony laughed, confident that no one farther away than Bucky could hear him over the general noise. “They seem to be having fun.”

“It’s about time. That’s Wanda,” Bucky said, “she’s th’ Boss Companion around here, runs the Company house, the Scarlet Witch. Think I’ve said that before.” He drew Tony across the room to the bar. “Two specials, and a bottle of autumn wine,” he told the girl behind the bar, giving her a few plastic cred chips.

A special was, apparently, a thick, meaty stew with potatoes and carrots, and a salad of mixed fruits and greens, along with a roll. She uncorked a bottle of wine, and handed Bucky two glasses to go with it.

“Looks good,” Tony said. He took the tray with the food, since Bucky had the wine, and followed Bucky to a table. He hadn’t been hungry until the rich, meaty scent of the stew had hit his nostrils, and suddenly, he was hungry enough to eat both bowls.

“So, you knew about that armor,” Bucky opened, when they’d both slowed down a little with their eating. It didn’t sound accusatory, but Tony winced anyway. Especially when he noticed that the two nearby tables had stopped talking to listen.

Well, he’d known, when he’d decided to take it out, that there would be questions. This was a gentler interrogation than he would have received in Ten Rings’ turf. Or Stane’s turf, either, for that matter.

“I made it,” Tony said, keeping his focus on his food, poking a bit of fruit around with his fork. “I was... betrayed. The details aren’t really important. I wound up as a prisoner of the Ten Rings. They wanted me to build weapons for them so they could conquer the turfs around them.”

Which included Stane’s turf, and Tony wasn’t sure if Obie had ever really understood that he was on the list of victims when he’d made that deal with Ten Rings, or if he’d just assumed that his stockpile of Stark weapons would succeed in holding them off.

“They took out my multislot reader, replaced it with this junk.” Tony waved at his dataport. “Confiscated my chips -- I told you about that, before. Tortured me, threatened to torture the poor sod they’d given me as an assistant.” He sighed. “I told them I’d do it. Built the armor instead, and used it to break out.”

He closed his eyes and pressed his free hand to them. “Lost the assistant on the way out. Broke out, made it as far as the Market, but then the suit was too conspicuous. And it’s not really designed for fast travel. I ditched it, hid the pieces as I went. Not as well as I thought I had, I guess. Went to ground. Happened across a companion who was fresh off a contract and trying to find another chip worth the cred, to change jobs. Quickly and quietly, before her owners could find out. So I swapped with her. Gave her the basic engineering chip that the Ten Rings had let me use -- a joke, really, but _slightly_ faster than doing the calculations without it, good enough for her to pick up some entry-level work. Took the companion chip and her cage.” He shrugged. It had been a tense night, finding a data terminal and setting up his fake registry and owner, getting himself on the auction list -- that had better odds of taking him farther away than simply offering a contract outright, he’d hoped. “You know the rest.”

“I wondered how you ended up on the Market,” Bucky said, softly. “Didn’t really seem like the pleasure work trade was anything you’d ever done before. But it’s a good chip. I couldn’t tell.” He took Tony’s hand and ran a thumb over Tony’s knuckles. “I’m sorry they hurt you. I know-- I know what that’s like.”

Tony looked up, and Bucky’s expression was warm, sympathetic. Caring. Tony had to catch his breath, suddenly. “I... Yeah, it sounds like it. I’m glad you got away, too. That you’re better than they were.”

“Not like I was even born there, on Hydra turf or nothin’,” Bucky said. “Prisoner of War. Captured. Leashed. Still--” He took Tony’s hand and led it around to the back of his head where there was a datajack, hidden under his hair. “Still got the scars from that. You know how it goes.” 

Tony nodded. “How... how did you get away?”

When Tony let his hand fall out of Bucky’s hair, Bucky kissed his palm, as if entirely unaware of the people watching, and listening, to them. But there was a gleam in his eyes, one that said none of this was accidental. Bucky was putting Tony on display, without putting him on the spot. Letting the folk hear him, see him, judge for themselves.

“The man on the bridge,” Bucky said, voice soft. “I knew him.” He shook his head. “Hydra sent me to kill someone. Nothing unusual about that, really. Except I don’t think they meant me to come home. I think they meant my target to eliminate me. I was-- becoming a problem. Fighting the leash. Spending more and more time in a cryo tube, it was fucking with my programming. Pierce didn’t like it. I don’t-- really remember, entirely.”

He stared off, like there was something interesting over Tony’s head, or a memory he’d nearly forgotten playing out there.

“He said to me, ‘don’t make me do this, Buck, I’m your friend,’” Bucky said. “We were fighting. I wouldn’t stop. Couldn’t, not really. I think I wanted to. We fell. Fell in the river. He was drowning. I dragged him to shore, but-- for the first time, I didn’t feel compelled to go back. So I went forward. Been going forward ever since.”

Tony squeezed Bucky’s hand in his. It was an incredible story. Tony had never heard of anyone being able to fight off a leash program. “It’s incredible. Who was it? The man you were supposed to kill?”

“I think-- I can’t be sure, because my brain was all scrambled,” Bucky said. “I think it was Steve Rogers. Friend of mine, growing up. Except part of me says that can’t be right. Steve would be ninety years old. Hell, I’m ninety seven years old; not that you can tell, between nanites and time spent in cryo. Steve’s long dead. Just someone who looked like him, I guess.”

Tony hummed. “I guess,” he agreed, because it did seem farfetched. But the name sounded familiar, and Tony couldn’t put his finger on where he might have heard it before. He looked down at his plate, the salad and stew long gone and the roll half-eaten. “I’m done,” he said. “You ready to get some sleep?”

Bucky pushed his own empty bowl away. “Yeah, s’been a long ass day.” He slung an arm around Tony’s shoulder, threw another few creds on the table for the cleaning staff, and led him out the door, ignoring folk’s curious stares.


	10. Chapter 10

“Well, I don’t know, then, do I?” Bucky demanded of Clint. “Ten Rings don’t want to make amends to get ‘em back, you don’t want to feed and guard them, and I would rather not _hold public executions_.”

Bucky stamped away from the discussion, because he needed to think. They’d tried -- twice! -- to send messengers to Ten Rings to make some sort of prisoner exchange thing happen, and Ten Rings had shot at the messenger both times, not even letting them get their message out.

It was clear that he was stuck with the prisoners, as they’d offered no words at all, aside from swears and threats of revenge. There was no one at home who wanted them back enough to pay a ransom.

And even if Bucky thought they’d have useful information, he wasn’t about to torture anyone. Sam usually tried to gentle something productive from them, but he hadn’t gotten far with that, either.

All of it boiled down to Clint complaining about being shot, pointed commentary from folk about the dangers of holding them in prison. It wasn’t like Bucky could house any of the occasional drunks in with Ten Rings, and Peggy was right. They were having to feed them and they weren’t producing anything.

Bucky was just headed to the workshop to see if Tony wanted to have lunch when Scott opened the door and walked rapidly down the hall, looking like there was a wolf at his heels. He didn’t even stop to exchange words with Bucky.

When he opened the workshop door, Bucky was fairly certain that the smoking hunk of… whatever it had been, which looked bad, smelled worse -- was probably the cause, although Bucky wasn’t sure if Scott was going to look for another fire extinguisher, or if he was fleeing the stench, or--

Tony.

Standing in the middle of the workspace, looking like he’d barely managed to avoid singeing his eyebrows right off.

He was staring at the wreckage, arms folded, expression tight and upset. Before Bucky could even open his mouth to ask, Tony kicked the mess, sending a scatter of pieces halfway across the floor. “Damn it!”

“Well, ain’t we both just having a bitch of a day,” Bucky observed. 

Tony spun around, apparently not having noticed Bucky in the middle of his frustrated tantrum. “Bucky.” He closed his eyes and visibly got a grip on his temper. “What’s up?”

“I _was_ gonna come ask if you wanted to knock off a bit and have some lunch,” Bucky said, “but I’m thinkin’ maybe you an’ I should go grab a couple of guns and do some target practice. Sounds like we’re both frustrated as hell.”

“I can’t get the suit to work,” Tony grumbled. “There were some codes and calculations that I ran with my special chips that I just... can’t seem to do with the standard engineering chip.” He reached back and rubbed fitfully at his dataport.

“Yeah, I don’t even know how Curly got it here without going insane, I’ve looked at the pilot chip he was using; he’d have been better off trying to hijack a helicopter.” The man’s name wasn’t really Curly, but neither he or his two cohorts had bothered to offer so much as a name, so Larry, Moe, and Curly they were, for lack of something better.

“I’m still not convinced he’s _not_ insane,” Tony said. He rubbed at his dataport again, looking at the mess, then sighed. “Yeah, okay, lunch or some target shooting is probably a good idea. Take a break, come back to it fresh.”

“Honestly,” Bucky said, pulling Tony into a consoling sort of side hug, noting absently that he had soot in his _ear_ , “I’m beginn’ to think the solution to all our problems is just wipin’ Ten Rings off the map. Get your chips back, deal with this prisoner of war problem, and stop worryin’ about them invading all the time.”

Tony leaned into Bucky’s side with a tired sort of chuckle. “Promise to take me with you if that actually starts to look like a reasonable solution.”

“Probably be better the other way around, frankly,” Bucky said. “Tech like yours, if we could get it working, we could plow through them. One of those battle suits-- just one, and we nearly lost four square blocks. Would have, too, if it wasn’t for you. Can you _imagine_ the sort of advantage we’d have? It’s like a catch-22. We need your chips back to get the suit working, but we need to plow through Ten Rings to get your chips.”

The armory and target range were underground; it kept stray bullets from finding a home in some unfortunate passerby, and kept the noise to a minimum. Tony didn’t have custom sound-dampners -- well, honestly, most people weren’t more machine than man, a problem that Bucky had -- so Bucky grabbed him a set of earplugs and a pair of safety goggles. The armory was well laid out; back in the day when they’d had a working relationship with Stark territory, they’d purchased a multitude of weapons, most of which were still in service.

Tony looked over their stock with an air of approval -- he might even have been slightly impressed. “Nice collection.” He trailed light fingers over the barrels of a few, then selected a Stark Hornet. It wasn’t the most lethal pistol in the armory, but it was a good choice for range work, dependable with an excellent scope for such a small piece. He cracked the chamber and tested the safety with a casual air that spoke of having done it many times before.

“Your father was a good neighbor,” Bucky said, very carefully. “Especially to new turf. He and Peggy got on well enough. She acted as our face for most of the sales and trade agreements. Fond of our whiskey and cigars, Howard was.” Bucky himself hadn’t gotten along with the man particularly well, thought Howard Stark was a bit of a blowhard, and trying too hard to seem important by some yardstick Bucky could only guess at. 

But the man was dead, and there was no point in taking potshots at him post mortem. Especially to his son.

Tony hummed noncommittally. “He was a pretty decent Boss,” he agreed. “Kind of a shit father, but no one can be everything, I guess.”

“I suppose not,” Bucky said. “Shame on that, though. Every child deserves a good father.” He lined them up at the range. “Best out of three matches buys the beer?”

Tony snorted. “That your way of saying it’s my turn to pay?” He loaded the gun and eyed the target at the end of the lane.

“I’ll even take my sharpshooter chip out,” Bucky offered. “Skill against skill.” The sharpshooter chip was a custom, Hydra only job, complete with rangefinders and targeting computers. Humming happily to itself in a corner of Bucky’s brain, nearly all the time, analyzing everyone he met as a potential target. It had made him damn paranoid for a while, but he forced his personality to override it. He could still react to danger with alacrity without treating everyone as the enemy.

“You want to make it a contest, we can make it a contest,” Tony said, looking amused. “But I’ve never really bothered to take my chipless skill beyond simple proficiency, so I feel like I’m still buying.” He lifted the pistol in both hands and sighted down the lane. “Ready when you are, Boss.”

Bucky tapped his chipset, ejecting the sharpshooter. The world shifted a little and he blinked as color flooded back in. It wasn’t that he couldn’t _see_ color when the chip was in, but that the chip set highlights around people. Friendly, or foe, or unknown. Looking out at the world without the chip was like seeing the very face of beauty. He didn’t dare look at Tony, afraid he’d be overwhelmed with staring at the man.

Stationary targets weren’t much of a challenge, even chipless, but they could start there.

“Ready. And fire.”

No tracking target, no wind report; not that he needed it. There wasn’t any wind, not underground. Bucky kept his shots clustered, squeezing the trigger without rushing, a steady throb of pressure through his shoulder as the gun recoiled sharply. 

For a moment, he imagined the target as one of his Hydra handlers, wanting to put a bullet between their eyes. But then he shoved that thought aside, and, with a slight smile, got a little playful with his grouping.

In his lane, Tony’s focus was tightly centered on his own target. His form looked good, wide stance and relaxed shoulders. He didn’t flinch with the recoil, or try to shoot one-handed, or any of a thousand other rookie mistakes. It probably should not be so attractive, watching Tony shoot, but it was anyway, that deadly, careful competence.

When Tony finished firing and put his gun carefully down on the counter, Bucky summoned the targets with a wave of his fingers, bringing them in to display. “Good work,” he told Tony, and by strict scoring, Tony would have won, his shots neatly clustered CoM. All of them would have taken an enemy out, provided low armor.

Bucky-- well, he’d often been accused of showing off. “For you--”

He’d fired his bullets in a neat little heart shape, right around the target’s heart.

Tony was startled into a laugh. “I’m not entirely sure if that’s sweet or disturbing,” he said, but his mouth was stubbornly pulling into a smile, and his eyes were shining, and there was the hint of a blush crawling out of the back of his collar.

“With his chosen weapon, Clint can beat me without a doubt, probably with his damn eyes closed,” Bucky confessed. “But I was shooting before the Hawkeye chips even were available. Some natural talent, and one amazingly huge competitive streak. Can’t quite resist showin’ off.”

“If I admit I’m impressed, do I get a kiss?” Tony teased.

“Ain’t like to deny you that one, no matter what,” Bucky said, and he put his own pistol down, crossed into Tony’s booth. Tony was just as luminous as Bucky had been afraid he would be, practically glowing. So beautiful that Bucky thought he might raise a hand as if to ward off a particularly brilliant sunrise. He brushed a thumb over Tony’s jaw. “How the hell did I get so fortunate?”

Tony huffed even as he leaned into the caress. “I cost you five grand and got you in trouble with your lieutenants.”

“Worth every single chit,” Bucky told him, and leaned down to claim Tony’s mouth. Victory never tasted so sweet.

* * *

Despite the idea of a raid on Ten Rings being a joke, someone had started spreading it around. Or the idea was like one of those viral things, where everyone thought of it all at the same time. Seemed like everywhere Tony was going, people were eyeing him with more interest than disdain, and Peter Parker had even come up to ask about the proposed raid.

“I heard,” he said, rubbing his nose like he was trying to be subtle, poor child, “that you and Boss, and Sam and a few others are planning a sneak attack on Ten Rings, wipe out the Mandarin and Raza and all his sub-bosses.”

“We’re really not,” Tony said. Naturally, Peter took that not as an actual denial but as an admonition not to talk about it in the open.

“Oh, riiiiight,” was all the boy said as he patted Tony on the shoulder. “Of course you’re not. Well, good luck for-- the thing you’re not doing.”

“...Right,” Tony said. Arguing at this point would just make it worse, Tony assumed. He mentioned the encounter that evening at dinner, hoping to get a chuckle out of Bucky.

“Yeah, about that,” Bucky said, showing a lot more interest in his mashed turnips than any root vegetable ought to garner.

Tony had a sudden feeling that he probably didn’t want to be holding a sharp implement for this. He set his fork down carefully. “About that?”

“Look, Ten Rings has got Stane crawling up their tailpipes right now, probably breach of contract or something,” Bucky said, “and it’s just… a very good opportunity. Even considering that if we have a run in with Stane’s people, it’s gonna get bloody. Pinching Ten Rings between our hammer and Stane’s anvil? It’s not as risky as it sounds, and it could really be worth it.”

“You’re... actually planning a raid against Ten Rings,” Tony repeated. Just to be sure he was hearing correctly.

Bucky held his finger and thumb up, about an inch apart. “Just a small one.”

Tony nodded slowly, digesting that. “Okay,” he said at last. “What’s my part?”

“Anything you can tell us, obviously. Maps, if you can remember. Ten Rings likes to hide down in their caves,” Bucky said, with more enthusiasm than before. “We’re mostly going to try for a smash and grab-- get in, get your chips if we can find them. Kill Raza at least, and the Mandarin if we’re very lucky. Blow some stuff up. Run away.”

“I know where my chips are,” Tony said. “Clint has the key to the safe. Or he did, the day you bought me. And I can show you where Raza’s usual haunts are.”

“ _You_ want to go,” Bucky said, as if he was marveling at the statement, not sure whether to believe it.

“I told you I did,” Tony pointed out. “They’re using Stark weapons that they never should have been able to get their hands on.”

“That isn’t your fault,” Bucky said. “I don’t want you to get hurt. You’re… valuable.”

“I would be more valuable on the ground,” Tony persisted. “Maps are no substitute for a guide who knows the territory.”

Bucky drew in a breath. “Tony,” he said, and it didn’t _quite_ sound condescending. “We’re going to be moving fast, taking a lot of fire. I don’t-- if something happened to you. I mean, you get shot and we’re down two people while someone has to tend to you. The rest of us, we’re experienced in a combat situation. I don’t want to--” Bucky trailed off.

Tony leaned back in his chair, something sour swirling inside his gut. “I’m not actually a companion. You know that, right?”

“I know that,” Bucky said. “It’s not about that. I thought you-- I don’t want to see you get hurt, okay?” 

There was a guarded pain in Bucky’s eyes, a vulnerability that gave Tony pause. “I don’t want to _be_ hurt,” he said. “But the best way for that to happen, in the long run, is for this raid to be as successful as it can be. And the best way to make _that_ happen is to bring me with you.”

Bucky puffed air. “This is gonna be like the invasion, ain’t it? I’m try’n keep you safe an’ you’re jumpin’ off damn buildings, ‘bout to cause me to die of shock right there on the spot. Is there anything I can say that’ll keep you home?”

Tony felt a rueful smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Convince me the raid’s chances of success are higher if I stay behind, and I’ll stay,” he challenged. “But I don’t think you can.” He eyed the pained expression on Bucky’s face. “I’ll wear the bits of the armor that I’ve got working,” he offered.

“I swear, I’d tie you to the damn bed if I didn’t think Parker would cut you free the second we left town and you’d just run after us,” Bucky growled.

“That’s probably true,” Tony admitted. He thought about making a joke about being tied to the bed in other circumstances, but Bucky didn’t really look like he was in the mood for that sort of banter. “Better to have me along voluntarily, where you can keep an eye on me.”

“All right,” Bucky said. “Show me what parts of the armor you can take with and use, and if Sam doesn’t think you’ll be a hazard, you can come.”

Tony reached out and caught Bucky’s hand. “You won’t regret it.”

Bucky squeezed Tony’s fingers. “I better not.”

* * *

The armored boots were heavy, clunking sharply on the workshop floor. Tony wasn’t going to be able to run in them, but if he wore the cobbled-together control chip he’d built, he could fly. For short distances, anyway.

“Okay,” he told Bucky, “this isn’t as impressive as it would be if I had the whole suit integrated, but--” He ignited the boots, using the one working glove to stabilize his somewhat wobbly flight. He shot Bucky a quick grin and looped the workshop twice before coming to rest back on the floor. “There’s a couple of places with pressure-sensitive floors. This is faster and easier than the usual countermeasures.” He held up the gauntlet, pointing it toward the far wall. “And as you’ve already seen, I can disrupt forcefield energy in a localized area. Long enough for a raiding band to slip through. They don’t have the whole turf protected like you do, but they have some strategic barriers.”

“He could be an asset, man,” Sam said, rubbing at his chin. He also wasn’t looking at Bucky, instead watching Tony with a critical eye. “More air support is always good, in the long run.”

“All right, fine,” Bucky admitted, without a lot of graciousness in it. “You can come--”

“Bucky!” Scott yelled, coming in through the far door, wearing something that looked oddly like a motorcycle suit, carrying a helmet under one arm. “When are we leaving?”

Tony eyed Scott’s outfit critically. He’d seen parts of it, but had no real idea of what Scott’s pet project was.

“This is supposed to be a small raid, Scott,” Bucky said. “What part of small were you unclear on?”

“Bucky, you don’t understand, man,” Scott said, putting the helmet on. “I got it to work!”

“Scott--”

Scott closed the faceplate, held up one hand, and thumbed a button on his glove.

And promptly vanished.

“What the _fuck?”_ Tony demanded. “Where did he go?”

“So,” Scott’s voice seemed to come from nowhere, or-- actually, right where he’d been standing. “You know how there’s supposed to be space between the bits and pieces of atoms that make up your body? What happens when you remove that space? Temporarily of course, and the suit protects me from all sorts of nasty effects, like not being able to breathe, because the oxygen is suddenly too big for teeny tiny lungs, you know.”

“How the fuck did you do that? That shouldn’t be _possible!_ ” Tony twisted his body to look for Scott, afraid to actually take a step. “The laws of physics do not allow for the compression of electron orbits!”

“I’m afraid they’re more like guidelines than actual laws,” Scott said. “I mean-- hang on. I still weigh as much as when I am full sized, so this might feel a little weird.”

There was a sudden jerk as if something had grabbed Tony’s armored boot and _yanked_ it. He stared down at a tiny, about a quarter of an inch tall, tiny person in a red and black suit. Scott waved.

“Shit!” Tony windmilled his arms for balance and then crouched down to look at the tiny little Scott. “Huh. How very... Lilliputian of you.”

“It’s not entirely my design,” Scott admitted. He hopped off Tony’s foot and scurried across the floor, looking remarkably like an insect to Tony’s hindbrain. “Hank Pym developed the Ant-Man suit, back-- oh, I don’t know, twenty years ago or so. The point is, I got it to work!”

“Nice job, Tic Tac,” Sam said. 

“Great,” Bucky said, throwing his hands up. “I’ve got the mad scientist crew going with us to take on Ten Rings. Fantastic. All I need now is some guy who can shoot lightning, and we’ll be all set.”

“Ten Rings wouldn’t know scientific advancement if it bit them on the ass,” Tony said. “Weapons, they’ve got stockpiled to last for months, if not years -- but that’s just about _all_ they’ve got. They’re not going to even know what hit them.”


	11. Chapter 11

Bucky looked over his rag-tag group. If he’d been with Hydra, still, he would not have counted their chances as very high. Hydra was a strict, disciplined group of soldiers, all fanatically dedicated to their leader and their cause. Even the ones that weren’t were leashed, or bound in some way.

No one in Hydra thought about failure. The cause was too great for a single footsoldier’s death to affect it.

A typical Hydra strike team would have had twice as many men, with explosive specialists and snipers making up the supporting troops, and straight up heavy firepower making up the core of the group.

If they were Hydra, they would fail.

But they weren’t Hydra, and they had a plan.

Of course, Bucky knew that plans had a tendency to go completely amok as soon as the enemy was encountered, so it wasn’t like a plan really meant anything.

What he was hoping, however, was that they had the element of surprise on their side.

Commandos seldom staged raids, and when they did, they were attacking small farms and warehouses on the edges of the settlement, stealing supplies and trying not to cause too many deaths. And they never struck directly at the cave system; the underground maze-slash-fortress was nearly impregnable, even with Stark weapons, just because there were so many twisty passages.

And Ten Rings didn’t have any aerial support. Living underground the way they did, there wasn’t a lot of training for pilots. They did have, according to Tony, a couple of heavy STAM bunkers dotted in the mountain face that could bring Sam down if they hit him.

Those were going to be their first targets, taking out the big guns. Everything else would be small arms fire from inside the mountain, close-up combat.

“Once the missiles are out, we’re counting on Tony to get us in through one of the service passages. Hopefully their attention will be at the main entrance, and we’ll only have light resistance.” 

Scott handed over a packet of latex print spoofs and an ocular that might -- or might not -- be able to fool the biometrics locks. They’d used their captives to provide the models, and it would depend whether or not Ten Rings deleted them from the whitelist. Tony thought he had a workaround if that failed, but really, getting the door unlocked was going to be the easy part, no matter what.

Tony was in tactical armor he’d borrowed from someone -- probably Scott; they were about the same size and the armor wouldn’t fit inside Scott’s shrinking suit anyway. It was a surprisingly good look for him. He turned and caught Bucky looking at him. He didn’t look excited, quite, but definitely keyed-up, ready for the action. He gave Bucky a small smile and a thumb’s up. “On your mark, Boss.”

“We’re all clear on our objectives? The most important thing: get Tony’s chips. The chipslot, too, if they still have it. Ten Rings may have installed them in some other poor sap, but if they did, they’ll probably be a prisoner. Prisoners are not to be harmed.”

Sam stepped up. “Surface-to-Air missiles down first, that’s me and Scott. We’ll meet up with you from the inside. If we can’t find a clear path down, it’ll just be Tic Tac, he can go through the air ducts.”

Clint waved a hand lazily. “Principle targets are Raza, Abu Bakaar, and the Mandarin. Keeping in mind that ain’t none of us know what the Mandarin looks like, this could be a very long list.”

Tony nodded. “There’s only a small handful of Ten Rings people who have any idea what he looks like. In theory, he could be anyone we pass on the street. In practice, I don’t think his megalomania would let him stoop so far as to pretend convincingly to be a commoner.” He held up one hand. “Tech and data priorities: grab any chips that might be useful, small tech if it’s unusual or particularly rare. Everything else, blow it up.” He grinned a little at that; he’d apparently had a lot of fun making a small arsenal of home-grown bombs for the team to carry.

Those who weren’t airborne -- Scott, who had, and Bucky really didn’t want more details on this, apparently tamed a flying ant, and Sam -- were packed into one of the turf’s few hovercars. Designed, in fact, by Tony’s father, quite a number of years ago, the car was relatively silent, comparatively, and didn’t need roads. Also, Scott had installed a gun turret on it a few years ago. 

It was not, however, well armored, and the gun was a last resort. They didn’t really need people taking shots at the vehicle. It was a long way to run home.

Tony made noises as they got themselves and their various weapons settled about souping up the hovercar’s engines, but as far as Bucky could tell, he was just muttering to himself about it the way anyone else might mutter about minor chores they needed to remember.

There were enough rocks and limestone formations to be almost a forest, and Bucky kept consulting the bit of map they’d managed to get from an old satellite databank. It was not, Bucky noticed, very good. Either that, or the rocks fell down a lot. Hard to say. But they were closing in on where they thought the service entrance was -- and there were a few scorch marks on the ground that corroborated Tony’s story, as well as giving them directions, when Bucky saw a good bit of overhanging cave, nothing big, just a shallow depression with a roof where they could stash the vehicle. 

“It’s walkable from here?” Bucky asked. No sense in getting too close and tripping any sensors or radar. 

“Yeah,” Tony said. He tipped his head, considering. “It won’t be pretty if we have to run, but this is probably as close as we can get with the car.”

“Right,” Bucky said. “Clint, scout ahead, if you see any guards, bring ‘em down fast and quiet.”

“Next you’ll let me tie my own shoes,” Clint grumbled, but he vanished off into the darkness ahead of them.

They wound their way through the columns of stone and hills of rock. “What a lifeless shithole,” Bucky murmured. The city streets that were Commando territory weren’t exactly wilderness, but they did have trees lining the streets and everyone had a roof garden or vegetable patch. Ten Rings territory looked like what happened when the terraformer broke down. Maybe that had been what it was. “What do they even eat around here?”

“Not a lot of vegetables and fruits, I can tell you that,” Tony said. “Mostly what I got was protein bars and tepid water. I don’t know what the actual citizens eat.” He was eyeing the rock walls carefully, though what he was looking for, Bucky couldn’t tell. But eventually he paused and glanced down a narrow little passage. “Hang on.” He squeezed into the crevice, inched around a corner, and then came back out again, grinning. He held up a softly-glowing device about the size of his palm. “Power source. First thing I hid when I broke free.” He dropped it into his pack and then nodded. “Okay, we can go.”

“ _That’s_ a power source?” Bucky demanded. The thing was tiny, only about the size of a tin of sardines. “What does it power?”

“Well, I built it to power the armor,” Tony said. “That battery they jerry-rigged onto it was probably only good for maybe an hour, tops. This would last... longer. I don’t have access to the calculations right now, but a couple of orders of magnitude. Weeks, at least.”

“That’s incredible,” Bucky said.

“Will you two stop chatting while I’m tryin’ to sneak up on someone? Good thing for you all--” there was a zing of Clint’s bowstring, a dull thunk, and then silence. “--I’m a really good shot.”

Tony winced a little, throwing a chagrined look Bucky’s way, then resumed following the jagged natural curve of the passage.

“Everyone we kill now,” Bucky said, trying to keep his voice lowered, “is someone who won’t be shootin’ at us later.” Which was just as well to remind himself of that, and that Ten Rings had come into his territory first. This wasn’t murder.

Probably.

He could wrestle with his conscience about it later.

He didn’t look particularly closely at the dead men, even when he stopped to check their chip slots. One of them had a ‘port that was even worse than the one Tony had, rusty and corroded. “Ew.”

Tony grimaced. “So apparently the piece of junk they gave me was actually one of their better models.” He eyed the dead man for a minute, then huffed. “I hope someone tried to load my ‘port and that it scrambled their tiny brains.”

“I suspect that’s gonna be the only reason we find ‘em. No one can handle your genius,” Bucky said.

The door -- such as it was -- was thick and heavy and solid steel, the kind of thing that Bucky’d only seen before in old holofilms about submarines.

“Here goes everything,” he said, getting the spoofers ready. “Get hacked in there, in case I set off any alarms.”

Tony nodded and his eyes went a little vague as he accessed the chip he was carrying. He opened the access panel by the door and poked at it for a couple of minutes. “Yeah, okay, unless this is an elaborate trap, we’re in.”

Bucky slid his hand into the glove, pressed his fingers to the biosensor, and held up the fake eye. Time to see if it was worth what they paid for it. Or if Ten Rings was smart enough to close access for a potential corpse.

The door clicked softly. With a shock of delight -- when was it ever that easy? -- Bucky put the spoofers back in his pouch and turned the dog in the center. 

It was heavy, and the hinges could use about a quart of oil, but they were in.

Tony looked up and down the corridor -- still rock, but hewn into something a little more suited to human travel -- and pointed. “Raza’s ‘office’--” He put finger-quotes around the word. “--is that way. We probably want him first. Without him, the others will be less organized.”

Bucky probably didn’t want to know what Raza did in his office, and he assumed that Tony knew, only too well. “Are you all right?”

“More or less,” Tony said. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to break down or anything.”

“No shame in it,” Bucky said, very quietly. “Jus’ if you’re going to, want to get you back to the car first. We can take it from here.”

Tony scowled at him, which was answer enough. Somewhere, probably from Howard, Bucky had heard the expression “Stark men are iron,” and Tony seemed to be cut from the same mold. Tough as hell, when he needed to be. Bucky felt an odd swelling of pride. “All right, then.”

Tony crept down the corridor, peering around corners. Once, at the sound of approaching voices, he backed them all into what turned out to be a storeroom of sorts. But finally they drew up into an alcove, pressed into the dark corners. “Once we cross the next hall, we’re definitely going to be seen, so we’ll want to do it in a rush. Scott. Raza’s office is two more cross-halls down, on the left. It’s got an actual door instead of just a curtain, and it’s always locked, but because the floors in here are rock, it doesn’t fit flush. You should be able to squeak under and disengage the lock from the inside.”

Scott nodded, dropped the helmet. “Come on, Ant-ony! Let’s go.” He shrunk and leaped onto the back of his flying pet ant. Ug. Puns.

“That is _so weird_ ,” Bucky commented, watching him bumble off until he was no more visible than a mote of dust. He counted to thirty. “Let’s go, just in case he embiggens into a whole room full of assholes.”

Tony nodded, glanced at the others to be sure everyone was ready, and strode out into the hall as if it belonged to him.

As soon as they reached the cross-hall, it became immediately obvious why -- that was a major passageway, teeming with people. They appeared to be at the far end of it, but there would be no sneaking across. They could only hope they weren’t identified before they made it to Raza’s office.

Scott opened the door from the inside, beckoning frantically. 

Bucky lengthened his stride, put one hand in the small of Tony’s back as if ushering him in.

Raza was on the floor, apparently passed out.

“What happened?”

“I uh, unshrank. He was on the floor-- getting a pen he dropped, I think. I startled him and he cracked his head on the desk.”

Tony snorted in disgust. He used one armored foot to roll Raza over, and then leaned over to pull the chip from Raza’s ‘port. “Not mine,” he said. He shoved Raza’s unconscious body out of the way, none-too-gently, and then took a framed photo off the wall to reveal a safe. “You still have that key, Clint?”

Clint pulled the chain from around his neck and handed it over. “He didn’t even notice when I stole it. I wonder if he thinks he lost it. Maybe that’s what he was looking for.” 

“Could be,” Tony agreed. “I’m sure the Mandarin is none too happy about it -- or will be, if he hasn’t found out yet.”

“Oh, tell me you need someone to crack the safe,” Scott said, looking eager, then disappointed as Tony stuck the key in and turned it. “Bummer. I haven’t gotten to use that chip in years.”

“I’m sure we’ll find some other locks for you to crack, somewhere,” Tony said, looking amused. He reached an arm into the safe -- it was much deeper than it looked from the outside -- and came out with a cardboard box full of chips. Tony dumped them out on Raza’s desk and started sorting through them with nimble fingers.

“Here, someone take this one, it’s a surgeon’s chip. Mm, hydroponics? Not sure if I believe that label, we could take it and check. Ooh, another sharpshooter chip; we could have another Hawkeye. Aha!” The chip he pulled out was unlabeled and a bluish-green instead of the standard lime green. He stuffed it into his pocket, then went back to sorting.

Bucky knelt near the unconscious Raza. He sighed and smacked the man in the face a few times until his eyelids fluttered. “Don’t move, don’t scream,” Bucky advised him, putting his pistol’s barrel against Raza’s forehead. “Unless you want me to paint the walls with your brains, which, hey, I don’t have to clean up here, so I’m okay with it.”

Raza glared, his eyes slowly coming into focus. “You will not get away--”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s boring,” Bucky said. “Where’s the Mandarin?”

“And my dataport,” Tony added. He finished sorting through the chips, tucking most of them into his bag. “If you didn’t let your chop-shop hacks destroy it with their utter ignorance.” He smirked as Raza recognized him, eyes widening. “Yeah, hi, I know, death and destruction, spare us the lecture and just tell us where to find Mandarin.”

Raza appeared to consider whether or not Bucky was serious for longer than Bucky wanted to be serious about killing the guy. On the other hand, he didn’t really have a jail to keep yet another prisoner in. They might just be better off shooting after asking questions.

“Look, my friend,” Bucky said, cheerfully. “You don’t need all your fingers. And I’m more than a little put out about how you treated Tony when he was in your care.”

“Down the hall, stairs. All the way at the bottom level,” Raza said. “You’ll never make it that far, infi--”

“God, shut up,” Bucky said, and he cocked his elbow long enough to reverse his grip on his pistol and clocked Raza across the face.

The man slumped against the floor.

“Seriously, I am running out of ideas for what to do with these assholes. You think Hydra will take ‘em if we run them out of their turf?”

Tony appeared to consider it. “Sure,” he said after a moment. “They probably need guinea pigs for their evil experiments.”

Bucky jerked his chin at the rest of the group. “Clear a path to the stairs, Tony and I will catch up in a moment.” When they were gone, he looked up at Tony. “Do you want me to shoot him?”

“I wouldn’t mind shooting him, myself,” Tony said. He stared at Raza in disgust, but made no move to draw on the man. “Seems wrong to do it while he’s helpless, though.” He considered Raza for a moment. “Maybe he’ll try to sell me out to Obie,” he mused. “Obie would kill him without thinking about it. He wouldn’t even get an enforcer to do the job.”

“How about-- we give him a pass this time on the not-wanting-to-descend line, and next time, I shoot on sight?”

“Or I do,” Tony insisted. “Yeah, okay, it works for me.”

“Or both. We can put so many holes in him, he’ll serve colander duty in the afterlife.” Right. Time to move on. Before there was enough organized resistance to have the whole anthill full of Ten Rings on their heads.

Tony nodded, secured his bag of chips, and gestured for Bucky to lead the way.

They made it down the hall and descended the staircases, down into the mountain. Bucky cringed a bit, feeling the weight of the mountain on his head, pressing down on them.

“You’re not gonna believe this, boss,” Clint drawled, standing in the doorway, arrow nocked and pointed at someone within.

The room that Clint was guarding was posh, luxurious. Every convenience known to man. Including a holoplayer, and the man in the room was watching-- what appeared to be a streaming football game from one of the inner city turfs, so far away that they might as well be on the moon. Places where the trains actually ran most of the time. Where everyone had a coldbox and a computer. Places that Bucky had never seen.

There were three Companions, scantily dressed, and hanging around the man who was watching the game. One had a bowl of snacks she was offering, another was cooing in the man’s ear, the third was rubbing his feet.

There were three Commandos in the room with weapons, and the guy in the chair was paying more attention to the game than any of the invaders.

Either the Mandarin was a complete idiot, or something Very Bad was about to happen.

“Who’s this?”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. Never seen him before.” He pushed past Clint. “Companions,” he announced, “walk away now.”

The ladies looked at Tony, then shrugged. One of them hunted around on the floor for her shoes. But they all left without complaint, and certainly no loyalty to their Boss.

“Who are you--”

“Do you mind stepping to the left? Better door than a window--”

“You do realize I’m holding a gun, here?”

Tony planted himself firmly between the guy and the holo, carefully not impeding Bucky’s line of sight or movement. “Where’s the Mandarin?” he demanded.

"Why he's me," the man said. "Strictly speaking. Public face and all that. Not that we have a public face… but in case we ever needed one. You see, you see, I'm an actor. Trevor Slattery's my name. Maybe you're familiar with my stage work, I did Iago in Othello, back in--"

"What?"

“You’re an _actor?_ ” Tony said, voice rising incredulously.

“Yes, well the _real Mandarin_ doesn’t like the true believers to see him,” Slattery said. He sat up a little straighter. “ _Are you ready for a valuable lesson?_ That sort of rubbish, it’s all an act. I look and sound more like the real thing, so he put me up in front.”

“Honestly, I really might cry if you don’t let me shoot this one,” Bucky commented absently. He knew that voice, everyone had heard the propaganda tapes that came out after Ten Rings took down a target. How everyone they raided or murdered were somehow sinful transgressors. This man, if nothing else, was an accessory to all the evil Ten Rings had ever done.

“Ah, yeah, well, let’s see here, because-- here’s the thing. My life, it’s very valuable. To me, really. Only me, but I-- whatever you want. The girls? Take ‘em. Weapons, chips, credits. The real Mandarin fucked off who knows where about eight months ago. I’ve been talking the talk and mostly letting Raza do whatever he wants. So, you know, I’m not really… invested in these guys or anything.”

Tony shifted his disbelieving stare to Bucky. “He’s an idiot. What do we do with this?”

“Do you know where Tony’s chip-slot is?” Bucky asked.

“Oh that thing, yes,” Slattery said. “Raza installed it on a few volunteers. One of them actually clawed out his eyeballs, very distressing. It’s in the safe, there. Take it. Take everything, really. I’ve got enough to retire on, I may very well just go back to Manhattan. Retirement’s looking better all the time.”

Tony stalked over to the safe, ran his hands lightly around the edges. “What’s the combination?” He glanced back over his shoulder at Slattery, thoroughly unimpressed.

“No, no, no, no,” Scott said, bouncing into the room. “Come oooooon. Let me crack the safe!”

“Oh for God’s sake, does no one take anything seriously around here?” Bucky snapped.

“Yes, but this isn’t it,” Scott said, already digging out his chip from the custom molded case where he stored them. 

Slattery leaned heavily to the right to watch the game over Bucky’s hip.

“And you-- you think we’re just going to let you go to Manhattan? How do you expect to do that?”

“Boat,” Slattery said. “For escapes.”

“A boat,” Tony repeated. And then repeated it again, louder to capture Slattery’s attention over the holo. “There isn’t enough water in this turf for a boat,” he challenged.

Slattery waved one hand. “Sure there is-- under the mountain, and it comes out on the other side.”

“You’re talking about an underground sea?” Bucky blinked. 

“Yep,” Slattery said. “I’ve been there a few times, for drills. The old Mandarin, he was big on drills.”

“I can’t imagine why he thought your ass was worth saving enough to have a damn _submarine_ at the end of an _escape tunnel_ for you,” Bucky said, trying to figure out if all those words really belonged in the same sentence or not.

“Jackpot!” Scott cried. And the safe door opened. “Uh-- okay, wow, I don’t think I have personally ever seen this many creds before, Boss.” Scott reached in to the bottom shelf of the safe and pulled out a handful of the golden plastic chits.

Tony went over to look, impatiently pushing aside the pile of creds like it was trash. “Where the hell is my-- ah!” He pulled out a dataport, trailing connectors. It looked like it had seen better days; there were scratch and scorch marks on the exterior surface, and one wire had obviously been ripped free of its housing, and there was a stain on one side that Bucky automatically categorized as blood.

But its boards were the same bluish-green as the specialized chips Tony had recovered from Raza’s office, and it had three slots, which Bucky didn’t think he’d ever seen even attempted before.

“Take it, take it, you’re welcome to it--”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Bucky said. “So, this is what you’re going to do, Mister I’m Not the Mandarin. You’re going to make an announcement to the true believers that they’ve fallen from grace. They’re going to get their shit and they’re going to leave this place behind. Over the mountain to whatever’s there, or Hydra turf, or-- anyplace that’s not here. Anyone left behind will feel the wrath of God. Or whatever. Got that? And then, then you’re going to get in your little boat, and fuck right off, are we clear?”

“Sounds great. Can-- is it okay if I just take Candy with me, and some of these--”

“Go. Before I decide that your life has no value,” Bucky snapped.

Tony glanced up from his minute inspection of the dataport. “Send Scott with him?” he suggested. “To make sure he doesn’t ‘forget’ his instructions? He’s most likely to be able to sneak out, after.”

Scott was busy shoveling credits into his bag. “I’m on it, Boss.”

“And so fall the Ten Rings, not with a bang, or even a whimper, but a moody sigh,” Sam said, shaking his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The “dog” is what that wheel is called in the middle of hatch-type doors. Which we just learned to write this chapter, so we're sharing with you.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the smut averse: This one is like 60% smut. Once it gets started, there's nothing else to the chapter, so feel free to stop as soon as things start getting to heated for you.

The dataport was a little banged up and abused. It desperately needed to be cleaned and sterilized, but Tony had built it to withstand his own not-entirely-placid life -- he couldn’t risk the chips falling out of alignment while in the midst of, say, payload testing, no matter how impressive the shockwave. So aside from one wire that needed to be replaced, it was almost entirely intact. He kept running his fingers over the open chipslots, aware that he was acting somewhat ridiculous, but unable to stop.

Whatever. They were nearly back home, and the only one who’d dare to comment would be Bucky. “There was a surgeon’s chip in the haul,” he commented idly. “Who’s going to get that? Because I’m going to want to be first in line when they’re ready to open shop.” He hesitated. “After, you know, any actual life-threatening cases.”

“Not me,” Sam said. “I know I been running the makeshift, but-- yeah, no. I think we’ve got a biologist, Helen. She might want it. She’s got steady hands and some interesting ideas about cell regeneration.”

“Noted.” Tony dropped that information in his dataslot and thought cheerfully that he wouldn’t have to put up with its sluggishness for much longer. He leaned into Bucky’s side as they slid through the forcefield that marked the boundaries of the Commandos’ turf.

“That,” Bucky said, “was one of the weirdest experiences of my life. And I lived through seventy years of _Hydra_.”

“Pretty sure we can make it weirder,” Sam said, “if you really feel the need.”

“I always have to make it weird,” Tony said cheerfully. “What’s on the plan for tonight, boss?”

“Set a heavy watch, in case they decide to retaliate, and the raiders can eat, bathe, and take a day off, _especially_ including me,” Bucky said. He directed a molten metal look in Tony’s direction, one that promised not a lot of rest on their rest day.

A shudder of anticipation rushed through him and he pulled out a trick the companion chip had introduced him to, a sultry look from under his eyelashes. “A day off sounds great,” he said. It came out a little rough, but hopefully not so noticeable that the others would know what he and Bucky were planning. Not that anyone would have trouble guessing anyway.

“Day after tomorrow, we go in and clear out Ten Rings turf. Anyone who’s willing to swear in to us can stay. Get rid of the upper echelon, if there are any left. We can start moving in as soon as we do a sweep for traps and unfriendlies.”

Clint nodded. “You got it. I’ll put a sweep team together.”

“I can give the team some idea of what to look for,” Tony offered. “At least, what I saw while I was there.”

Bucky put an arm around Tony’s shoulders. “Let’s hit the kitchens first for a home box. I don’t want to get out of bed for two days, if I don’t have to.”

“I like this plan,” Tony said. “I’m proud to be a part of it.” The rest of today and all of tomorrow, in bed with Bucky? It was more continuous time together than they’d had yet. Hell, it might be more time _total_ than they’d had so far, if you didn’t count the time they’d been asleep. Tony smiled and nestled up against Bucky’s side, trailing fingers idly over Bucky’s thigh.

Scott snorted. “Careful, Boss,” he said. “Take too much time, too many companions, and you’ll be some old fake guy, watching the telly.”

Bucky turned, his arm clicking as the vents flared. “Did you want to rephrase that while you still have teeth? Tony’s not my Companion. Tony makes his own choices.”

Tony rolled his eyes a little and took Bucky’s hand. “Are you upset because you didn’t get to fight anyone, or something? Because picking a fight with Scott over a dumb joke is not the most fun thing we could be doing right now.”

“All my jokes are dumb,” Scott said. “Comes with the territory. You two have fun, and I’m-- just gonna go before I ruin the moment. If, in fact, you were having a moment.”

Bucky sighed. “I’m not upset,” he told Tony, leading him off to the dining hall. “I’m just trying to figure out how we’ve been in fear of Ten Rings, and they’re… nothing? They’re a bunch of fanatics who believe in a false god? One that abandoned them?”

“To be fair,” Tony said, “they were a lot harder to deal with the first time.”

“And for your sake, too,” Bucky said. “They-- kept you captive, and we… didn’t do anything.” He took Tony’s hand and placed a kiss in the middle of his palm. “I don’t know. I feel like I let you down, that-- there should have been justice.”

“I got my chips and ‘port back,” Tony said, patting his carryall. “And you punched Raza in the face. It’s probably not everything he deserves, but I’d rather enjoy what I’ve got now than spend all my energy wishing for revenge.”

“True,” Bucky said. “Just post-battle jitters, I guess. No one’s wounded, which, I don’t know what to do with all the adrenalin.” Except his hand moved from around Tony’s shoulders, down his spine, and ended up resting on the curve of Tony’s ass, so clearly, some part of Bucky knew what to do with extra energy.

Tony wiggled a little. Bucky’s hand was big and warm and fit perfectly against Tony’s backside. “I’m sure we’ll think of something,” he said archly. He tossed Bucky a smirk and let the wandering of his fingers grow a little more daring. 

From the dining hall, they picked up two home boxes, foods that had been prepared and just needed to be reconstituted later. The meals were never quite as good as fresh made, but a talented hand with the spice button, and they were tolerable. Especially if no one wanted to bother to cook.

When they got back to their quarters, there were two crates in front of the door, both labeled Boss’s Companion in crude lettering.

“Oh,” Bucky said. “Um. Your bounty for -- uh, you know, bringing down the armor. Lot of people’s homes and businesses were saved, for your quick thinking. Bonuses, I guess you could call it.”

Tony blinked at them. “Huh. One of these days, I’ll convince your people that I have a name.” He dropped into a squat and pried the lid off one of the boxes.

Mostly what was inside were items that Tony would have called household goods; blankets and comforters and sets of dishes. Things that might grace a young unmarried person’s hope chest. Clothes, both practical and decorative. Boots that looked like they would fit properly, as well as a coat, nicer shoes for dressy occasions, and a small velvet pouch that jingled when Tony lifted it.

Inside that--

Jewelry.

 _Companion_ jewelry. Gold chains and crystals, various charms for pierced ears (or other piercings) and a barely-there thong and loincloth.

Tony laughed a little and held up a couple of the chains, draped them over the loincloth. “What do you think, would I look good in this?”

Bucky’s mouth dropped open a little, his tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip, and his eyes visibly darkened. “You’d look _amazing_.”

That wasn’t the reaction Tony had expected, but it was certainly an interesting one. He tipped his head to look up at Bucky through his lashes. “Would you like a private showing?”

“Only if _you_ want to,” Bucky said, and he forcibly jerked himself out of whatever fantasy he was currently exploring. “You’ve proven yourself in a dozen different ways, already, you know.”

Tony had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. He stood up, the little pouch dangling from his hand, and leaned into Bucky’s space, feeling the heat baking off Bucky’s skin. “You say that like this wouldn’t be fun for me, too.” He grinned up at Bucky’s expression, and palmed the printlock. “I’m going to go change in the bathroom,” he said. “You... get comfortable.”

He brushed past Bucky and beelined for the bathroom. He fumbled in his pocket for the companion chip -- he could probably figure out how to put this stuff on, but he wasn’t sure he knew how to _wear_ it.

He stripped quickly, grabbed a cloth and scrubbed off most of the dirt and grime of the day, and then turned his attention to the jewelry. He didn’t have the piercings necessary for some of it, so that went back into the bag. The chains were doable, though, and the cascades that hung from the loincloth’s ties. He managed to get it all situated, then turned to look in the mirror.

He felt a little ridiculous, really, up until he slotted the companion chip. Then it kicked in with its soft fuzz of an overlay, seeing everything as sensual and beautiful. He practiced the sway of his hips, checking the way it made the chains shift and glitter, and then nodded.

Bucky wasn’t going to know what hit him.

Tony opened the bathroom door and strutted out.

“Oh, stars,” Bucky swore. He’d apparently used the basin of water to clean up a bit, and he was wearing his denims low on his hips, and -- nothing else. He had his knees spread a little, sitting in one of his chairs like he was the lord of all creation, a minor noble, waiting to be served. He had opened the homebox as well and had a small pile of nibbles at his elbow. “Ain’t you a pretty thing?”

Tony spread his arms and turned in a circle, letting Bucky look his fill. “You think so? A little decoration makes everything shinier?”

“I keep thinking you couldn’t get better or more interesting, and yet, you still manage to surprise me,” Bucky said, and he twisted in his chair, just enough for Tony to see his abs flex, the way his body tightened and clenched.

“Good,” Tony said. “I’d hate to think you had me all figured out already.” He sauntered across the space between them, stepping right into the space between Bucky’s knees. “Well, Boss, what’s your pleasure?”

Bucky traced the line of chains across Tony’s chest, the metal brushing against Tony’s skin. The elaborate belt held nearly a half-dozen that adorned Tony’s thighs, clipping back to the loops on the waist that held the thong -- just barely -- in place. Bucky flicked the chains, sending them jingling. “You’re so gorgeous,” Bucky told him. He hooked one finger on the web of chains over Tony’s chest, and drew him in closer. 

That perfect, lush mouth closed over Tony’s nipple, rubbing the chain against it.

“Oh, oh that’s...” Tony gasped in a breath. He was barely able to keep his feet, swaying into that electric warmth. “Bucky, I...”

Bucky worked the little nub of flesh, until it was peaked, stiff and jutting out, and then swapped to the other side, giving the other the same teasing treatment. When Tony put his hands on Bucky’s shoulders, to keep his balance, Bucky pulled back. With one finger on the web of chains, Bucky slid the entire get up back and forth, up and down, the light chains brushing over Tony’s sensitive, stimulated skin.

“Oh gods...” Tony clutched at Bucky's shoulders. “You’re going to make me fall over.” He laughed, hoarse and needy already, wanting Bucky’s hands on every part of him. “It feels so good.” He ducked his head, bending to kiss Bucky’s mouth, teasing at the corners, along the edge of that bottom lip.

Bucky smirked, which Tony felt more than saw, the way his mouth wriggled under Tony’s. “Nah,” Bucky said. “You fall over, I’ll stop.” His hands were relentless, wandering over Tony’s exposed skin, fingertips sliding over Tony’s thighs, one the drag of skin on skin, the other almost frictionless pressure of those metal fingers. Each sweep seemed to take him almost close enough, and then not quite, until Tony was practically rocking in place, trying to direct Bucky’s hands where he wanted them.

It was like a dance, almost, this sensual, erotic torture that seemed to make Tony want more, need more, with each breath, with every gentle touch. True to his word, each time Tony swayed dangerously, Bucky’s hands stilled, steadying Tony on his feet, that knowing smirk playing over his features as Tony’s desire burned hotter and hotter, more than he’d ever known he could feel. “Bucky,” he gasped, “please, please, just...”

“Turn around,” Bucky told him. “Brace your hands on the table.”

Tony did as Bucky asked, bending over to place his hands on the table, spreading his legs and curving his spine to offer himself to Bucky, wanting nothing in the entire world so much as Bucky’s touch on his overheated skin, to soothe the desperate craving in him.

Bucky flipped the bit of loincloth out of the way, and then inhaled with surprise. “Well, that’s a pretty visual,” he said. The chains around Tony’s waist and hips all linked to a thick ring just over Tony’s hole, keeping Tony’s cheeks spread, just a little, everything presented. It was wide enough that, if Bucky wanted to, he could fuck Tony _though_ the ring. The chip had kept Tony from thinking about it too much, but he wasn’t quite certain that he wanted to know who’d given it to him, or why. Everyone knew that Tony’s things had gone with the Stane envoy, but--

It didn’t matter. Tony shivered and the chains rattled together with their sweet melody as Bucky ran his fingers down Tony’s spine, and then along his crack, traced the ring just enough for Tony to feel it as teasing pressure.

“Oh god, Bucky, please, _please._ ” Tony curved his back more, trying to entice more of that touch. “I need you.”

Tony got a moment’s warning, in the snick of a cap coming off, and then Bucky’s slicked finger was against the entrance to Tony’s body, circling, rubbing, constrained by the diameter of the ring. Where before, Bucky’s touch had been _not quite enough_ , this was almost too much, centered right where Tony wanted him most.

“Like that, honey?” Bucky asked, and then breached him, just the tip of his finger, when Tony inhaled to reply.

Tony let out a sound, some kind of sound, a whimper or a moan or a whine. “Bucky, Bucky, more, I need you, I need...” He was begging shamelessly, needy and desperate, and he didn’t care. He only _wanted_.

Bucky added more lube, then pushed two fingers in, fucking Tony with them, slow and thorough, the other hand continuing to play with the chains, rubbing them over Tony’s chest, sliding down Tony’s thigh. When Tony looked behind him, to cast a seductive stare, Bucky was looking down, watching himself penetrate, biting his lip, eyes lidded and dark. “So pretty,” Bucky said again.

A few moments later, Tony heard the sound of a zipper, and Bucky shifted a little as he pushed out of his denims.

Finally, _finally_ , Bucky pulled back, out, and then the head of his cock was pressed at Tony’s entrance. “I got you,” Bucky told him. “Wanna see you come through that little scrap of nothing, be all messy, yeah?”

He teased, pushing only in far enough for Tony to feel it, and making him rock back into it, eager for more.

Tony groaned and pushed back, trying to push down onto Bucky’s cock. “Yes,” he sighed, “Bucky, yes, I need it so bad...”

Bucky thrust in, and he whined as he did, his body surging up and inside, hips smacking against Tony’s ass with a sharp sound. “Oh, that’s good, baby.” His hands went on Tony’s hips to hold him, set the rhythm. The ring served another purpose, Tony found: as Bucky pulled back, it tightened the chains, tugging the whole light rig, the few chains that held the front of his loincloth on, the ones over his chest and nipples, until his entire body was being teased to the exacting rhythm of Bucky’s strokes.

Tony groaned and gasped, letting himself fall into the rhythm Bucky was setting, letting the sensations ebb and surge, pulling him farther and farther out to sea, until all he knew was the drag of Bucky’s cock inside him, the spark and shiver of each motion, the sensation of Bucky’s skin against his, the sound of Bucky’s breath in his ear. He was lost in it, and wanted to never find his way back out again.

Bucky made some soft, impossible noise, and he reached around Tony’s hip, cupping him through the thin, silky fabric, giving delicious friction. “Yeah, like that, you perfect, perfect man,” Bucky told him, dropping heated kisses against Tony’s spine, hand moving against Tony’s cock, stroking in an evil counterpoint to Bucky’s heated thrusting.

Tony whimpered, shuddering all over with conflicting needs -- to push forward into Bucky’s hand, to rock back onto Bucky’s cock, to stay balanced on this knife’s edge of sensation and incandescent desire. Too much and not enough, all at once, and finally, the impossible swell of desire broke and crashed over him. He might have shouted with his release, or sobbed. He wasn’t sure.

When he came back to himself, he was vaguely aware of sore, sticky thighs, and the way Bucky was supporting his weight as they moved from the table to the bed. Not quite _carrying_ him, although Tony had no doubt Bucky could. 

"Here we are," Bucky said, nudging Tony climb into the bed, soft cool sheets against his skin. A moment later the bed shifted as Bucky crawled in after him, weight creating a dip in the bed, each movement translated to Tony's limp, sated form. "I'll get us a washcloth or something in a minute. Just rest for a while."

Tony didn’t really care about cleaning up at the moment, though he’d probably regret it later if he didn’t. Resting for a minute first sounded like a good idea, though. He hummed and snuggled into the warmth of Bucky’s body curling around him, listening to Bucky’s breathing and feeling the strong beat of Bucky’s heart against his back.

Bucky wrapped an arm around Tony, draped over his hip, tugging him closer and stuck his nose into the hair at the back of Tony’s neck, breath tickling the fine hairs there. He murmured something, Tony wasn’t quite sure what it was, but the tone was affectionate. And then--

He snored.

“You really are the worst,” Tony muttered. He thought about wriggling free to clean himself up, but the instant he stirred, Bucky clung tighter, like Tony was a big teddy bear. Tony sighed and gave in to it. Maybe he could talk Bucky into helping him clean up in the morning, instead.


	13. Chapter 13

“Ain’t nothin’ like a well-organized merger of territories,” Bucky said, running both hands through his hair, resisting the temptation to yank it right out. “And this ain’t _nothin’_ like well organized.” Half of Ten Rings territory was booby-trapped to hell and back, and the rest of it was in the process of slowly starving to death.

Bucky had been greeted, not with derision, or weapons, or hostility, but with tears of gratitude from the common folk, most of whom hadn’t eaten better than nutri-pills and supplement bars in as long as they could remember.

“Yeah, this is a real clusturfuck,” Tony agreed. “We need to find someone local who’s got half a brain so they can organize things.”

“Good luck with that,” Clint commented, coming up beside them. “I had to put guards on the food supply to keep ‘em from having a food orgy in the streets. We don’t have so much to spare that we can feed all of them and all of us, if they’re gonna eat it all today.” Clint heaved a great sigh. “So, I got some interesting news for you. Do you want it, or should I stable it for the time being?”

Bucky made an impatient gesture. “What is it?”

“There’s a… delegation,” Clint said. “Territory on the other side of Ten Rings, no one I ever even heard of, but no one’s been through Ten Rings in ages, so I suppose that makes sense. They sent out about half an army, right to the border, and pitched a tent. They’ve got a flag out, looks like a grey eagle on a black background. Nobody’s used _flags_ since my mother was a babe.”

Tony frowned. “That... sounds familiar. Where have I heard of that device before?” He glanced at Clint. “Did anyone try to talk to them?”

“Not as yet,” Clint said. “I like having backup before I do something remarkably stupid. Mostly so there’s someone around to say ‘I told you so’.”

“Well, let’s go take a look, then,” Bucky said. “We’ll make a production about it. Get some troops together, try to equal their number. Tony-- you’re with me. Clint, you and some other sharpshooters, cover us, in case it’s a trap.”

“You got it, boss,” Clint said, and he loped off to set up his nest.

“We just going to stroll in there and say hi?” Tony wondered. “What’s my role?”

“You’re going to be my holdout pistol,” Bucky said. “Dress up pretty; not quite as blatant as your auction outfit, but you know what I mean. They’ll discount you entirely, so if we need actual shooting backup, no one will be looking at you. Well, not because they think you’re armed, leastways.” He gave Tony a lewd wink. “You think you can slot the companion chip, and a sharpshooter, along with your engineering?”

They’d finally gotten enough time to install Tony’s original chipslot, which was _nice_. Bucky’d never seen anything like it.

Tony considered it briefly, then nodded. “Yeah, no problem. But you’re going to have to sell being such a jealous bastard you won’t even leave your companion behind to negotiate.”

Bucky gave Tony his best look of simmering possessiveness. “Won’t be a problem, I assure you.”

Tony gave him a slightly startled look, then huffed. “Okay, then.” He took a step back. “I’m going to go change.”

Bucky watched him go, not failing to notice the way Tony’s hips swung provocatively.

“You are a possessive, jealous ass,” Scott mentioned. “In case Tony hadn’t noticed.”

“We haven’t discussed it,” Bucky said, shortly, trying to cut off that line of conversation. They lived together, they had truly astonishing amounts of incredible sex. But-- they’d never quite crossed the line into… whether or not there was more there than just the physical.

Bucky didn’t want to presume.

“Why the hell not?” Scott asked, and then held up his hands when Bucky glared at him. “I’m just saying, it seems like something that should be discussed. I’d sure as hell want to make sure my girlfriend knew something like that about me.”

“Tony’s--” _not my boyfriend_ , Bucky almost said, then cut it off. “Something else.”

“Well, that’s for sure,” Scott agreed. “You want me to ride along in your pocket, in case you want to slide me in for recon?”

Bucky almost snorted. Having Scott ride along was like trying to walk with a toddler clinging to his foot, but -- “Yeah, okay, you can come, too. Do some scouting around and make sure they’re not about to attack. I don’t know that we can trust anyone -- they’re not Ten Rings allies, but that doesn’t make them _friends_.”

Scott nodded. “You got it, boss. Let me just get my gear.”

Tony returned only a few minutes after Scott left. He hadn’t changed much about his clothes, but there was a subtle shift in the way he walked that made it utterly undeniable that he was a companion, a sensual sway that drew all eyes to his low-cut shirt, the curve of his hips, the play of his muscles under skin-tight pants.

Or maybe that was just Bucky.

_You do not have time to pounce on him_ , Bucky told himself sternly. “Scott’s coming too, to recointer all threats smaller than a mouse. Also, you--” Bucky made a noise, a little grumble in his throat, and accompanied himself by biting his thumb to indicate just how delicious Tony looked. “They might still search you, but it ain’t gonna be guns they’re looking at.”

“That’s the plan,” Tony agreed, giving Bucky a sultry look. He patted the pistol hung at his side. “I added a little shiny to this one, make it look more like a last resort piece than a real threat.”

“All right, then,” Bucky said. “Let’s go meet the neighbors, darling.”

Tony draped himself over Bucky’s arm, though Bucky’s left arm was still free, and Tony’s pistol was well within reach for either of them. “Can’t wait.”

Bucky didn’t bother to change; his armor served well enough as a uniform, but he did put on the Winter Soldier’s mask, the one he used to wear that kept out smoke and other toxins. And also kept his expression from being immediately readable.

He jerked his chin at the troops, who fell in behind him and accompanied them to the border. It wasn’t far, which was good. Tony was going to dislocate his hips if he kept sashaying like that.

“I’m tempted to demand that they take me to their leader,” Bucky joked, still out of range. “Jump out, Scott, you’re making me lopsided. Take a scout around and sneak back into the command tent.”

If Scott answered, Bucky couldn’t hear it, but the weight fell away, so he had to assume Scott was doing what he’d asked.

Tony clung a little tighter to Bucky’s arm as they got closer. “These guys know what they’re doing,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “They’re well equipped and well positioned. If they’re not in the mood to be friendly, this-- may be a very short talk.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” Tony said, in a tone that meant he was anything but confident.

“State your name, affiliation, and business,” one of the guards said as Bucky and Tony got nearer to the tent.

“Barnes,” Bucky introduced himself, “Howling Commandos. I’m here to speak to whoever represents the territory to the north of what was formerly Ten Rings turf.”

Tony smiled slyly. “I’m with him,” he said, cocking his head toward Bucky.

“As a show of trust,” the man intoned, “the Captain will let you keep your weapons.”

“Not that they’ll do you any good,” the other guard muttered in a lowered voice that Bucky understood was meant to be overheard. His hand tightened on Tony’s elbow, just a bit.

Inside the tent was dim; if Bucky had been a normal man, unmodified, he would not have been able to see after moving from the bright desert sun. That was, he could tell, entirely intentional as well, letting their opponent look at them freely, before they could see him.

But Bucky wasn’t a normal man, and he saw the Captain, brilliant blue uniform, accented with white and red. Strong chin, blue eyes. The very edge of a shield showed over his shoulders, silvery metal that reflected the dim light.

Bucky watched those blue eyes go round with shock, then narrow with suspicion.

“Bucky?”

It couldn’t be. 

Bucky took a step forward, letting go of Tony’s elbow, trying to see the shape of the face beneath the helmet. The voice, though--

_The man on the bridge… I knew him_

“Take off the helmet,” Bucky demanded. “Let me see you--”

The man unsnapped the chin strap, pulled off the winged helmet to reveal a shock of blond hair, high cheekbones with a smattering of freckles. “Bucky-- I thought you were _dead_.”

“I thought you were smaller,” Bucky responded, automatically, as if he didn’t even know what his mouth was doing, just that it was doing it.

“Oh my god,” and Steve, because it _was_ Steve, leaped over the camp desk in front of him, and Bucky didn’t even have to think about it, he was opening his arms to wrap around Steve, to hold his best friend, his oldest companion, his-- whatever Steve was, it was bigger than just _friend_. Bucky didn’t think there was a word to describe it.

“Steve fuckin’ Rogers, where the hell have you been?”

“I joined the army,” Steve said, as if that explained anything. Maybe it did.

“An old friend?” Tony murmured from behind Bucky. “Well that’s... fortuitous.”

Bucky blinked, recalled himself. “Steve-- I… This is Steve Rogers,” Bucky said. “Steve, this is Tony. “

Steve was staring, blatantly, unembarrassed, that brilliant blue gaze darting from Tony’s perfect face to the low collar, to the hips and hands. “It’s my pleasure to meet you,” Steve said, reaching for Tony’s hand and holding it for at least twice as long as was appropriate. “Gotta say, I’m not surprised, Bucky having the prettiest Companion. He always did have an eye for beauty that went unrivaled.”

Bucky stared. When the hell had Steve, of all people, learned to _flirt_?

Followed rapidly by a spurt of jealousy. Steve was not supposed to be flirting with _Tony_. “Yeah, yeah, knock it off, this one’s mine.”

“Maybe he’s got a friend?” Steve suggested.

* * *

“I have a lot of friends,” Tony said coyly, letting the companion chip take over his end of the conversation while his mind whirled. “I’m sure any of them -- or all of them -- would be more than happy to keep you company, Captain.”

“Entertaining as that sounds,” Steve said, “I’m more of a one person kind of guy.” He shot a look at Bucky, those wide guileless eyes saying everything and nothing all at the same time. 

“Just to nail down the formalities,” Bucky said. “I take it that you do not intend to declare war on us?”

Steve almost choked on nothingness. “That was subtle.”

“It’s been a long week,” Bucky said. “You’re a friend, so I’m asking. Are we making peace, or war?”

Steve waved a hand. “You’re a friend. I’m not going to fight you again. Much rather have you on my side-- by my side.”

“Til the end of the line?”

“Til the end of the line.”

The two men shook hands, and then Steve dragged Bucky into another one of those bone cracking hugs.

Tony couldn’t see Bucky’s face, but Steve’s looked incandescent with joy, with relief. However long it had been since they’d last seen one another, this was more than a simple friendship.

This was... nothing that Tony could compete with. His chest ached as if his heart were being squeezed, but he pushed it aside, let himself fall a little deeper into the detachment of the companion chip. He glanced around at the others in the tent, trying to store up what information he could.

After what seemed entirely too long, they took a step back. “Good,” Bucky said. “I’m gonna-- tell my men to stand down, at ease, start breakdown of camp. We can-- nail down the formalities of trade agreements and the like… after everyone’s had some sleep. Ten Rings has been a thorn in our side for a long time.”

“Sounds good,” Steve said. “Why don’t… why don’t you join me, for dinner, after you’re settled in? It’s been a long time, I bet you have some great new stories to tell.”

Bucky scoffed. “You never listened to my stories in the first place. Always had something else on your mind.”

Tony swallowed. Old friends, and much more. Best to back away gracefully, and retreat to lick his wounds in private. “I can pass the word,” he offered, “if you’d like to stay and... catch up.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, not looking at Tony. “That’s probably not a bad idea. Dig Scott out of whatever hole he’s crawled into, too. I’ll be safe enough.”

“Buck--” Steve said, as if he was offended, or concerned. “When have I ever gotten you in trouble?”

“Would you like that list alphabetically, or chronologically?”

“I’ll see you later, then,” Tony said. He turned away, not wanting to see how enraptured Bucky was to be with Steve again.

He stepped outside again and allowed himself a moment to breathe, to remind himself that he had more than he’d ever expected to find, with the Howling Commandos, even without Bucky. “Scott?” he called. “Change of plan. We need to head back.” 

“Why? What’s going--” Tony found himself yanked around the corner of a tent by something no bigger than the stub of a pencil. And then Scott was full sized, practically standing on Tony’s toes. “These guys are _seriously_ well-armed.”

“Their boss is an old friend of Bucky’s,” Tony said. “We don’t need to worry about hostilities. You and I are heading back to tell everyone to stand down; he’s going to stay and catch up.”

Scott tipped his head to one side. “Yeeeeeah, and--” he said. “Something else is going on, because you look like I just ate your cat.”

“It’s fine,” Tony said shortly. “Nothing that will affect the turf.” He couldn’t look at Scott, so he started back toward their own encampment, switching the companion chip off and digging into the engineering one instead. Maybe he could lose himself in a project -- the armor, for instance, now that he had the proper tools at hand.

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Scott said, “because when I am, you will anyway, might as well give you permission. You… live on the turf, right?”

“Sure,” Tony said. He resisted the temptation to lengthen his stride. Scott had longer legs than he did, anyway.

“So-- you’re affected,” Scott said. “You’re not fine, and something is, therefore affected.”

Tony shot Scott an exasperated glare. “Nothing to affect security, then,” he amended. “Though I suppose I might need to find a room of my own.” His lip twitched humorlessly. “Maybe Wanda will have space for me.”

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Scott said, “but I’d wait until you talk with the boss before you go rentin’ a room.”

Well, that might be true. Whatever Bucky’s feelings for Steve, he was still the boss. He still, technically, owned Tony’s contract. 

And Tony thought he deserved the courtesy of an explanation, or at least an official dismissal, if he’d been so utterly wrong about what had been developing between them.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’ll talk to him,” he said. “Whenever he gets back.”

Scott patted Tony on the shoulder. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “I have a good feeling about you two.” Scott gave him double thumbs up and a wide, exaggerated grin, before snapping his helmet down, shrinking back to bug sized, and jumping on his flying ant. At some point, the ant was going to have a realization about not being able to carry a hundred and sixty pounds worth of squashed human and expire on the spot.

That point was not, apparently, today.

Tony watched the bug zip away, and then continued walking. He stopped at the outpost to pass on Bucky’s orders to Clint, and to tell him to pass word down the line. Not that they would leave the posts unmanned entirely, but they’d no doubt be relieved to step back from a constant state of full alert.

He found Sam and reported in, as well. “He stayed behind to catch up, so I’m not sure you should expect him back before morning,” he finished. “I’m going to go catch some sleep, unless there’s something you need from me.”

“Right then,” Sam said. “We moved your mobile to a more secure location, just in case -- he pointed. “All the way at the end, you’ll see it.”

The mobile, a combination vehicle and housing, was the nicest in the lot that made up the Commandos bivouac, cozy with a tiny kitchenette and their shared bedroom in the back that folded out from the table and chairs.

Tony changed into more comfortable clothes, gulped down a cup of water, and crawled into the bed. It wasn’t as comfortable as the wide platform Bucky had in his quarters in the turf, but it was better than rolling into a sleeping bag on the floor.

Alone, he had no reason to pretend not to be moping. He pulled Bucky’s pillow to him and pressed his face into it, breathing in the warm scent of Bucky’s hair, and embraced a bout of self-pity.

He was only brushing the edges of sleep when the door to the mobile opened and heavy, familiar footsteps came in; not unlike Bucky when he was beyond exhaustion. Alert or awake Bucky was almost as quiet as the proverbial cat. Not a real cat, mind you, since they were often very noisy animals, despite what everyone thought.

“Ow!” Bucky apparently walked right into something, based on the thud.

Tony briefly considered feigning sleep, but he’d never been able to fool Bucky before, so he sighed and sat up, crossing his leg and letting the blankets pool in his lap. “Are you okay?”

There was another thump, and then Bucky groaned. “‘M fine, Tony, jus’... jus’... when th’ hell did shrimpy little Steve Rogers learn to drink like a damn Viking?”

Tony hadn’t seen anything about Rogers that was remotely _shrimpy_. But that explained Bucky’s clumsiness, if they’d been drinking. “Have some water before you come to bed,” he said. Closing his eyes did nothing at all to block out the vision of Bucky and Steve drinking together, getting closer and more flirtatious and bold with each refill of their cups.

“Stupid, slow, off-the-discount-rack Hydra nanites,” Bucky commented, and there were certain soft sounds of fabric and zippers as Bucky started stripping off his gear. “His just-- metabolize it right there on the spot. How is that fair?”

“Terrible,” Tony said drily. “Meanwhile, the rest of us have to metabolize our booze the old fashioned way.” He added, a little quieter, “I didn’t think you’d come back tonight.”

“The rest of you probably have more sense than to try to outdrink a minor deity,” Bucky said. He got to his feet, threw something that sounded like his pants onto a nearby chair, which promptly fell off, and went to the sink. “Water… yeah, okay. I can-- wait, why wouldn’t I come back?”

Tony rolled his eyes. Bucky must be drunker than he thought. “Because you were with Steve. Catching up.” He managed not to put verbal quotes around the phrase; he was proud of himself for that. “I mean, I can’t blame you. You two were closer than close for god only knows how long, and he’s a damned good looking guy.”

“You noticed that, did you?” Bucky sounded a little less cheerful drunk suddenly.

“Hard not to,” Tony admitted.

“Suppose not,” Bucky said, and he sat down on the edge of the bed. “Hard to compete with all that…”

Well, _that_ hurt. “Yeah,” Tony said, a little breathlessly, feeling like he’d been punched in the chest. Damn it. He was a grown man, he should be able to handle this. “No, uh. No hard feelings, I get it.”

“I mean, he ain’t the boss on his turf, that’s… some guy named Fury, doesn’t like to get directly involved in conflict. More of a sneak-spy guy. Maybe it’s just because he’s old,” Bucky said. “But Steve’s… I mean, he’s the Captain, and Shield’s turf is pretty big.”

“Yeah? Sounds, uh. Sounds nice.” Shit, was Bucky going to give up the Commandos altogether? Leave the turf to go move in with Steve and join Shield? “Maybe just... one thing at a time?” Tony suggested.

“Yeah, probably,” Bucky said, and it sounded almost heavy. “I guess you’ll be wanting your contract back. I didn’t think-- nevermind, it doesn’t matter.”

Tony pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I guess,” he said, reluctant to give up that last link to Bucky. “I mean. I don’t really _need_ it, now I’ve got my dataport and my chips, I’ll find work okay. But you... yeah, you aren’t going to need a contract, now, anyway.”

“Hey, no, okay,” Bucky said, turning around and looking at Tony. Not that Tony could really see him, just his outline in the dim lighting. “Steve’s a good guy, it won’t be like that. No one’s going to put you out on the street--”

_Except for you_ , Tony thought, though that was unfair. Bucky was being as kind as he could be, under the circumstances. “Yeah, no,” Tony said. “I’ll be okay. If you’re happy, I’ll be fine.” _Liar._ But what else could he say?

Bucky made a soft sound, like a sigh with extra emphasis. “Happy’s not the right word,” Bucky said. “But I won’t make it any harder on you than it has to be. I know-- I guess I thought things were going to be different.”

Tony couldn’t help the short, bitter laugh that hiccuped out of his throat. “Yeah, me too. I thought we-- Well, not much point in dwelling on it now. What’s. Um. What’s the plan?” How much longer did he have? Maybe it would be for the best if it was fast. Ripping off a bandage.

“Uh, Steve’s taking his troops back tomorrow, report in,” Bucky said. “He expects Fury to arrange some sort of diplomatic-- thing. In a few weeks. So we can figure out what to do about the stray Ten Rings fanatics out there, and where we plan to divide the territory. That’ll be fun, as I don’t see why we should have to give anything up for Shield. We bled for it, after all, why should they get any? But-- uh, I mean, if you want to sort of consider it a honeymoon period, between now and--” Bucky rubbed at the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Tony. Tell me what you want to do, and I’ll make sure it happens, to the best of my ability. But--” He reached his hand out, like he wasn’t quite sure Tony would let him touch their fingers together. “If it doesn’t work out.” Bucky made a choked sound. “You can always come back.”

Tony paused. Ran that last bit through his head again. “ _I_ can-- I’m not the one who’s leaving,” he pointed out.

Bucky spluttered. “Why-- why would _I_ go anywhere? Commandos turf is my _home_ , I built it, I ain’t--”

“So instead of just moving me to solo quarters, you’re sending me to Shield?”

“Why would I move you to _solo quarters_? Wait, wait, okay, just--” Bucky waved his cyber arm around, like he was swatting a fly that wasn’t there. “I think we might be havin’ two _different_ conversations here, so-- are you accepting the Captain’s offer?”

“What offer?” Tony asked. “We barely exchanged two words!” He couldn’t stand not being able to see Bucky’s expressions any more; he leaned over to wave the light on, at its dimmest setting.

“He made an offer, just after you left,” Bucky said. “Waved it to the mobile, almost-- almost twice what I paid. You-- I told him you made your own choices.”

“He _what?_ ” Tony hadn’t checked the mobile all day -- he rarely had messages on it; mostly the people who wanted to talk to him were in his space anyway. “Why the hell would he do that when he’s got _you?_ ”

“I am _not_ going to just sign your contract over to someone else, Tony, not even Steve,” Bucky said. “You get to make your own decisions about that. If you want him, I’m-- I’ll try to be happy about it. For your sake.”

“Why would I-- I thought _you_ wanted to be with him!” Tony shoved his hand through his hair. And why the hell would Steve Rogers offer even more than the somewhat ridiculous price Bucky had paid for Tony’s contract?

“Excuse me, _what_?”

“I thought we were talking about you signing me out because you were going to go rekindle an old flame! Or, or bring him here, or-- I don’t know, but--”

“Okay, okay, the rest of this conversation probably took place in some alternate dimension or something, but can I just say this, for the record? _Ew_. No. Not happening, not in any dimension, on any planet, in any reality. Steve Rogers is my best friend. I’ve known him since I was eight years old. And the idea of doing anything even remotely--- kindle-y with him is just. No. Absolute zero possibility.”

Tony stared at him. “You and Steve aren’t lovers.”

“ _Never_ ,” Bucky said, firmly.

Tony’s head spun. “So you weren’t-- You didn’t-- You’re not trying to get me out of the way.”

“Why the hell would I do that?” Bucky demanded. “You’re-- you’re not _in my way_. You’re… you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t-- If it was my choice, just mine? I would never sell your contract, I don’t care how much someone else wants you, I’d-- I’d want you to be mine. Always. But it’s not my choice, it’s yours.”

“Oh.” Tony stared at Bucky in the dim light, his heart suddenly racing. “I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you. To hell with the contract, Bucky. I’ll give you back every cred, I just. I just want _you_.”

Tony wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but he was engulfed in Bucky’s embrace, held tight against that broad chest. “ _Tony_ \--” Bucky’s voice broke, like he was holding back a sob, and not particularly well, at that. He made a soft sniffle, then-- “Thank the stars. I… really wasn’t going to handle you leaving particularly well, you know. Steve’s probably lucky he got me drunk, he made two comments about your ass and I wanted to break his nose for him.”

Tony laughed, shaking with adrenaline. “I think I know how you feel. I couldn’t think of you with him without wanting to destroy something.”

“He doesn’t even _know_ you,” Bucky complained. “I mean, I ain’t sayin’ your ass isn’t perfect, because it is, but-- I rather love the whole package, you know?”

That was another punch to the chest, but less pain and more pure shock. “You-- you do?”

Bucky went a little pink in the face, eyes wide, and then lowered. “Uh, didn’t really mean to just blurt it out like that, but--uh. Yes. Yeah, I think I do.”

“Oh,” Tony breathed, and he tucked his face up against Bucky’s neck. “Good. I think so, too. I mean, me. For you.” What the fuck were words, even?

“I wanted you, th’ first time I even saw you,” Bucky said, “thought that was the most powerful thing I’d ever feel, but-- Spent all my time tripping over myself tryin’ not to get in your way, not to crowd you, or hover around you, but all I wanted to do was-- be with you.”

Tony laughed a little. “You realize you paid a pretty ridiculous sum to be with me whenever the hell you want, right?”

“And if all you were t’ me was a pretty face,” Bucky said, “then I’d-- be missing all the best parts. You’re worth more to me than that.”

Tony thought about the way his heart felt lighter just for being in the same room as Bucky. He thought about Bucky’s dry sense of humor and quick wit and shocking kindness, and nodded. “I... know what you mean,” he admitted. “I was-- God, it _hurt_ to think you were going to take Steve as your lover, put me aside. But that was _nothing_ against what it felt when I thought you were _leaving_ , that I might never even see you again.”

“I would never leave you behind,” Bucky swore. “Tempted t’ tear up that damn contract. I thought I was going to straight up die when Steve offered to buy’t out.”

“And that’s a real puzzler,” Tony said, snared once again by the mystery of it. “He was flirting a little, but he didn’t really read as _interested_ to my chip. Why the hell would he make me an offer -- and an offer even more ridiculous than the one _you_ paid?”

“Tell the truth, it is weird,” Bucky said. “Steve-- I mean, obviously, I ain’t seen the guy in years, but, he never really seemed th’ type to-- I mean, he never was big into the Companion system anyway, said they was little better than whores, you know, with that sort of squinchy expression? I just thought maybe, he loosened up a bit or something. It happens.”

Tony huffed. “Companions are skilled workers,” he said. “It’s a perfectly legitimate trade. Just because--” He stopped. “Trade,” he repeated. “They know.” He pulled back just far enough to look at Bucky. “Twice what you paid is more than ridiculous for a companion, but it’s... pretty close to what I was pulling in as a consultant, before Stane dumped me. I’ll have to pull my mobile and check the offer to know for sure, but I’ll lay money on it being the _exact_ amount of my consultant fees. It’s a message. They know who I am.”

“And that I don’t know,” Bucky said. “They think you’re _hiding_. The missing Stark heir. You’re hiding in plain sight and I don’t know who you are, so why not lure you out, give you somewhere safe to go where you don’t have to be fuckin’ the boss to stay alive?” Bucky’s hand made an abrupt squealing sound as he tightened the fingers past their tolerance.

Tony reached down and picked up the metal hand, gentling the fist open and curling his own fingers against it. “As it happens, I _enjoy_ fucking the boss.” He tossed Bucky a quick smile. “And I’m not going over to Shield, but... I wonder what would happen if I told them I was willing to negotiate.”

“They-- Steve was bragging a bit, maybe, while he was trying to sell me on the idea of selling your contract. They-- we might be able to negotiate some sort of, I don’t know, mentor program?”

Tony cocked his head. “What _kind_ of mentor program? They have in-house skills to teach? Not just chips?”

Bucky inhaled. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “They’re bordered against, and _allied with_ , Wakanda. _Of course_ they want you. No wonder he got me drunk. When th’ hell did Steve Rogers start playing spy? Someone’s gotta be whisperin’ in his ear. He’s not th’ type.”

“Now I almost _have_ to pretend to negotiate,” Tony said. “If only to find out what they’re up to.”

Bucky made a soft, worried noise and pulled Tony back into his arms. “ _Carefully_ ,” Bucky said. “I don’t know… obviously I know Steve Rogers a lot less well’n I thought. I don’t think he’ll resort to a forcible relocation, but I don’t know who’s leading from the rear.”

“Don’t worry,” Tony said. “I’m not going in without a few surprises on me, and a directline comm with you.”

“I think you may just have to get used to the idea that I will _always_ worry about you,” Bucky said. “I know, you ain’t delicate or fragile or incapable. But-- you sorta walked in, took my whole heart with you, an’ I’m not too calm about watching you go into danger.”

That was a somewhat stunning thought, really. Tony pushed the plans and plots and calculations from his mind and turned to face Bucky directly, cupping Bucky’s face in his palms and leaning in for a slow, soft kiss. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”

“Very late tomorrow. Maybe even th’ day after,” Bucky said, nudging Tony back onto the bed.

Where, very true to his word, Bucky kept them awake for the next several hours. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap for this story! We hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> Next week, our Sunday posting slot will be taken over by The Tutor, a sort of Victorian-era gothic romance -- stay tuned!


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